<Xaa^ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


AMERICAN  SCIENCE  SERIES,  BRIEFER   COURSE 


PSYCHOLOGY 


BY 


WILLIAM/  JAMES 
Professor  of  Psychology  in  Harvard  University 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY    HOLT    AND    COMPANY 
1908 


Copyright,  1892. 

BY 

HENRY   HOLT   &   CO. 


ROBERT  DBUMMONU   COMPANY,  PRINTERS,   N  E  V     YOHK. 


rary 

6"P 


% 


PKEFACE. 


In  preparing  the  following  abridgment  of  my  large* 
work,  the  Principles  of  Psychology,  my  chief  aim  has  been 
to  make  it  more  directly  available  for  class-room  use. 
For  this  purpose  I  have  omitted  several  whole  chapters 
and  rewritten  others.  I  have  left  out  all  the  polemical 
and  historical  matter,  all  the  metaphysical  discussions  and 
purely  speculative  passages,  most  of  the  quotations,  all  the 
book-references,  and  (I  trust)  all  the  impertinences,  of  the 
larger  work,  leaving  to  the  teacher  the  choice  of  orally 
restoring  as  much  o*  this  material  as  may  seem  to  him 
good,  along  with  his  own  remarks  on  the  topics  successively 
studied.  Knowing  how  ignorant  the  average  student  is  of 
physiology,  I  have  added  brief  chapters  on  the  various 
senses.  In  this  shorter  work  the  general  point  of  view, 
which  I  have  adopted  as  that  of  '  natural  science/  has,  I 
imagine,  gained  in  clearness  by  its  extrication  from  so 
much  critical  matter  and  its  more  simple  and  dogmatic 
statement.  About  two  fifths  of  the  volume  is  either  new 
or  rewritten,  the  rest  is  '  scissors  and  paste/  I  regret  to 
have  been  unable  to  supply  chapters  on  pleasure  and  pain, 
aesthetics,  and  the  moral  sense.  Possibly  the  defect  may 
be  made  up  in  a  later  edition,  if  such  a  thing  should  ever 
be  demanded. 

I  cannot  forbear  taking  advantage  of  this  preface  to 
make  a  statement  about  the  composition  of  the  '  Principles 
of  Psychology.'  My  critics  in  the  main  have  been  so 
indulgent  that  1  must,  cordially  thank  them;  but  they 
have  been  unanimous  in  one  reproach,  namely,  that  my 

111 

1295040 


IV  PREFACE. 

order  of  chapters  is  planless  and  unnatural;  and  in  one 
charitable  excuse  for  this,  namely,  that  the  work,  being 
largely  a  collection  of  review-articles,  could  not  be  expected 
to  show  as  much  .system  as  a  treatise  cast  in  a  single  mould. 
Both  the  reproach  and  the  excuse  misapprehend  the  facts 
of  the  case.  The  order  of  composition  is  doubtless  un- 
shapely, or  it  would  not  be  found  so  by  so  many.  But 
planless  it  is  not,  for  I  deliberately  followed  what  seemed 
to  me  a  good  pedagogic  order,  in  proceeding  from  the 
more  concrete  mental  aspects  with  which  we  are  best 
acquainted  to  the  so-called  elements  which  we  naturally 
come  to  know  later  by  way  of  abstraction.  The  opposite 
order,  of  'building-up'  the  mind  out  of  its  'units  of  com- 
position,' has  the  merit  of  expository  elegance,  and  gives  a 
neatly  subdivided  table  of  contents;  but  it  often  pur- 
chases these  advantages  at  the  cost  of  reality  and  truth. 
I  admit  that  my  'synthetic'  order  was  stumblingly  carried 
out;  but  this  again  was  in  consequence  of  what  I  thought 
were  pedagogic  necessities.  On  the  whole,  in  spite  of  my 
critics,  I  venture  still  to  think  that  the  'unsystematic* 
form  charged  upon  the  book  is  more  apparent  than  pro- 
found, and  that  Ave  really  gain  a  more  living  understand- 
ing of  the  mind  by  keeping  our  attention  as  long  as 
possible  upon  our  entire  conscious  states  as  they  are  con- 
cretely given  to  us,  than  by  the  post-mortem,  study  of  their 
comminuted  'elements.'  This  last  is  the  study  of  artificial 
abstractions,  not  of  natural  things.* 

*  In  tlie  present  volume  I  have  given  so  much  extension  to  the 
details  of  '  Sensation  '  that  I  have  obeyed  custom  and  put  that  subject 
first,  although  by  no  means  persuaded  that  such  order  intrinsically  is 
the  best.  I  feel  now  (when  it  is  too  late  for  the  change  to  be  made) 
that  the  chapters  on  the  Production  of  Motion,  on  Instinct,  and  on 
Emotion  ought,  for  purposes  of  teaching,  to  follow  immediately  upon 
that  on  Habit,  and  that  the  chapter  on  Reasoning  ought  to  come  in 
very  early,  perhaps  immediately  after  that  upon  the  Self.  I  advise 
teachers  to  adopt  this  modified  order,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  with 
the  change  of  place  of  '  Reasoning '  there  ought  properly  to  go 
a  slight  amount  of  re-writing. 


PREFACE.  V 

But  whether  the  critics  are  right,  or  1  am,  on  this  first 
point,  the  critics  are  wrong  about  the  relation  of  the  mag- 
azine-articles to  the  book.  With  a  single  exception  all  the 
chapters  were  written  for  the  book;  and  then  by  an  after- 
thought some  of  them  were  sent  to  magazines,  because  the 
completion  of  the  whole  work  seemed  so  distant.  My 
lack  of  capacity  has  doubtless  been  great,  but  the  charge  of 
not  having  taken  the  utmost  pains,  according  to  my  lights, 
in  the  composition  of  the  volumes,  cannot  justly  be  laid  at 
my  door. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  L 

PAGE 

Introductory 1 

Psychology  defined  ;  psychology  as  a  natural  science,  its 
data,  i.  The  human  mind  and  its  environment,  3.  The  pos- 
tulate that  all  consciousness  has  cerebral  activity  for  its  condi- 
tion, 5. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Sensation  in  General  9 

Incoming  nerve-currents,  9.  Terminal  organs,  10.  '  Spe- 
cific energies,'  11.  Sensations  cognize  qualities,  13.  Knowl- 
edge of  acquaintance  and  knowledge-about,  14.  Objects  of 
sensation  appear  in  space,  15.  The  intensity  of  sensations,  16. 
Weber's  law,  17.  Fechner's  law,  21.  Sensations  are  not 
psychic  compounds,  23.  The  '  law  of  relativity/  24.  Effects 
of  contrast,  26. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Sight    ....  .  28 

The  eye,  28.  Accommodation,  32.  Convergence,  binoculai 
vision,  33.  Double  images,  36.  Distance,  39.  Size,  color 
40.     After-images,  43.     Intensity  of  luminous  objects,  45. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Hearing  .  .  47 

The  ear,  47.  The  qualities  of  sound,  43.  Pitch,  44.  '  Tim- 
bre,' 45.  Analysis  of  compound  air- waves,  56.  No  fusion  of 
elementary  sensations  of  sound,  57.  Harmony  and  discord,  58. 
Discrimination  by  the  ear,  59 

vil 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  V. 

PA  OK 

Toucn,  the  Temperature  Sense,  the  Muscular  Sense, 
and  Pain  ,  60 

End-organs  in  the  skin,  60.  Touch,  sense  of  pressure.  60. 
Localization,  11.  Sensibility  to  temperature,  63.  The  inuscu 
lar  sense,  65.     Pain,  67. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Sensations  of  Motion  70 

The  feeling  of  motion  over  surfaces,  70.  Feelings  in  joints, 
74.  The  sense  of  translation,  the  sensibility  of  the  semicircu- 
lar canals,  75. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Structure  of  the  Brain 79 

Embryological  sketch,  78.  Practical  dissection  of  the  sheep's 
brain,  81. 

CHAPTER  VIH. 

The  Functions  of  the  Brain 91 

General  idea  of  nervous  function,  91.  The  frog's  nerve- 
centres,  92.  The  pigeon's  nerve-centres,  96.  What  the  hemi- 
spheres do,  97.  The  automaton-theory,  101,  The  localization 
of  functions,  104.  Brain  and  mind  have  analogous  '  elements,' 
sensory  and  motor,  105.  The  motor  zone,  106.  Aphasia.  108. 
The  visual  region,  110.  Mental  blindness,  112.  The  auditory 
region,  mental  deafness,  113.     Other  centres,  116. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Some  General  Conditions  of  Neural  Activity  .        .  120 

The  nervous  discharge,   120.      Reaction-time,  121.     Simple 
reactions,  122.     Complicated  reactions,  124.     The  summation 
of  stimuli,  128.     Cerebral  blood-supply,  130.     Brain-thermome 
try,  131.     Phosphorus  and  thought,  132. 

CHAPTER  X. 
Habit .        .        .       L       (  184 

Its  importance,  and  its  physical  basis,  134      Due  to  pathways' . 

formed  in  the  centres,  136.     Its  practical  uses.  138.     Concate 


CONTENTS.  IX 

PAGK 

nated  acts,  140.  Necessity  for  guiding  sensations  in  secondarily 
automatic  performances,  141.  Pedagogical  maxims  concerning 
the  formation  of  habits,  142. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

The  Stream  of  Consciousness 151 

Analytic  order  of  our  study,  151.  Every  state  of  mind  forms 
part  of  a  personal  consciousness,  152.  The  same  state  of  mind 
is  never  had  twice,  154.  Permanently  recurring  ideas  are  a 
fiction,  156.  Every  personal  consciousness  is  continuous,  157. 
Substantive  and  transitive  states,  160.  Every  object  appears 
-with  a  '  fringe '  of  relations,  163.  The  '  topic '  of  the  thought, 
167.  Thought  may  be  rational  in  any  sort  of  imagery,  168. 
Consciousness  is  always  especially  interested  in  some  one  part 
of  its  object,  170. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

The  Self 176 

The  Me  and  the  I,  176.  The  material  Me,  177.  The  social 
Me,  179.  The  spiritual  Me,  181.  Self-appreciation.  182.  Self- 
seeking,  bodily,  social,  and  spiritual,  184.  Rivalry  of  the  Mes, 
186.  Their  hierarchy,  190.  Teleology  of  self-interest,  193. 
The  I,  or  'pure  ego,'  195.  Thoughts  are  not  compounded  of 
'fused'  sensations,  196.  The  '  soul '  as  a  combining  medium, 
200.  The  sense  of  personal  identity,  201.  Explained  by  iden- 
tity of  function  in  successive  passing  thoughts,  203.  Mutations 
of  the  self,  205.  Insane  delusions,  207.  Alternating  person 
alities,  210.  Mediumships  or  possessions,  212.  Who  is  the 
Thinker,  215. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Attention 217 

The  narrowness  of  the  field  of  consciousness,  217.  Dis 
persed  attention,  218.  To  how  much  can  we  attend  at  once  t 
219.  The  varieties  of  attention,  220.  Voluntary  attention,  its 
momentary  character,  224.  To  keep  our  attention,  an  object 
must  change,  226.  Genius  and  attention,  227.  Attention's 
physiological  conditions,  228.  Tbe  sense-organ  must  be 
adapted,  229.  The  idea  of  the  object  must  be  aroused,  232 
Pedagogic  remarks,  236.     Attention  and  free-will,  237. 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

PAOB 

Conception  .  239 

Different  states  of  mind  can  mean  the  same,  239.  Concep- 
tions of  abstract,  of  universal,  and  of  problematic  objects,  240. 
The  thought  of  '  tho  same '  is  not  the  same  thought  over 
again,  243. 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Discrimination 244 

Discrimination  and  association;  definition  of  discrimination, 
244.  Conditions  which  favor  it,  245.  The  sensation  of  differ- 
ence, 246.  Differences  inferred,  248.  The  analysis  of  com- 
pound objects,  248.  To  be  easily  singled  out,  a  quality  should 
aiready  be  separately  known,  250.  Dissociation  by  varying 
concomitants,  251.     Practice  improves  discrimination,  252. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Association 253 

The  order  of  our  ideas,  253.  It  is  determined  by  cerebral 
laws,  255.  The  ultimate  cause  of  association  is  habit,  256. 
The  elementary  law  in  association,  257.  Indeterminateness  of 
its  results,  258.  Total  recall,  259.  Partial  recall,  and  the  law 
of  interest,  261.  Frequency,  recency,  vividness,  and  emotional 
congruity  tend  to  determine  tbe  object  recalled,  264.  Focalized 
recall,  or  '  association  by  similarity,'  267.  Voluntary  trains  of 
thought,  271.  The  solution  of  problems,  273.  Similarity  no 
elementary  law  ;  summary  and  conclusion,  277. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

The  Sense  of  Time 280 

The  sensible  present  has  duration,  280.  We  have  no  sense 
for  absolutely  empty  time,  281.  We  measure  duration  by  the 
events  which  succeed  in  it,  283.  The  feeling  of  past  time  is  a 
present  feeling,  285.     Due  to  a  constant  cerebral  condition,  286. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Memory ...  287 

What  it  is,  287.  It  involves  both  retention  and  recall,  289. 
Both  elements  explained  by  paths  formed  by  habit  in  the  brain, 
290.     Two  conditions  of  a  good  memorv,  persistence  and  nu 


CONTENTS.  XI 


PAGE 


merousness  of  paths,  292.  Cramming,  295.  One's  native  re- 
tentiveness  is  unchangeable,  296.  Improvement  of  the  mem- 
ory, 298.  Recognition,  299.  Forgetting,  300.  Pathological 
conditions,  301. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Imagination 302 

What  it  is,  302.  Imaginations  differ  from  man  to  man  ;  Gal- 
ton's  statistics  of  visual  imagery,  303.  Images  of  sounds,  306. 
Images  of  movement,  307.  Images  of  touch,  308.  Loss  of 
images  in  aphasia,  309.  The  neural  process  in  imagination, 
310. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Perception 812 

Perception  and  sensation  compared,  312.  The  perceptive 
state  of  mind  is  not  a  compound,  313.  Perception  is  of  definite 
things,  316.  Illusions,  317.  First  type :  inference  of  the  more 
usual  object,  318.  Second  type:  inference  of  the  object  of 
which  our  mind  is  full,  321.  'Apperception,'  326.  Genius 
and  old-fogyism,  327.  The  physiological  process  in  percep- 
tion, 329.     Hallucinations,  330. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  Perception  op  Space 335 

The  attribute  of  extensity  belongs  to  all  objects  of  sensation, 
335.  Th?  construction  of  real  space,  337.  The  processes 
which  it  involves:  1)  Subdivision,  338;  2)  Coalescence  of  differ- 
ent sensible  data  into  one  'thing,'  339;  3)  Location  in  an  en- 
vironment, 340;  4)  Place  in  a  series  of  positions,  341;  5)  Meas. 
urement,  342.  Objects  which  are  signs,  and  objects  which 
are  realities,  345.  The  '  third  dimension,'  Berkeley's  theory  of 
distance,  346.  The  part  played  by  the  intellect  in  space-per- 
ception, 349. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Reasoning 351 

What  it  is,  351.  it  involves  the  use  of  abstract  characters, 
353.  What  is  meant  by  an  'essential'  character,  354.  The 
'  essence  '  varies  with  the  subjective  interest,  358.     The  two 


XU  CONTENTS. 

great  points  in  reasoning,  '  sagacity '  and  '  wisdom,'  360.  Sa- 
gacity, 362.  The  help  given  by  association  by  similarity,  364. 
The  reasoning  powers  of  brutes,  367. 

CHAPTER  XXm. 

Consciousness  and  Movement 870 

All  consciousness  is  motor,  370.  Three  classes  of  movement 
to  which  it  leads,  372. 

CHAPTER  XXrV. 

Emotion 873 

Emotions  compared  with  instincts,  373.  The  varieties  of 
emotion  are  innumerable,  374.  The  cause  of  their  varieties, 
375.  The  feeling,  in  the  coarser  emotions,  results  from  the 
bodily  expression,  375.  This  view  must  not  be  called  material- 
istic, 380.  This  view  explains  the  great  variability  of  emotion, 
381.  A  corollary  verified,  382.  An  objection  replied  to,  383. 
The  subtler  emotions,  384.  Description  of  fear,  385.  Gene- 
sis of  the  emotional  reactions,  386. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Instinct 391 

Its  definition,  391.  Every  instinct  is  an  impulse,  392.  In- 
stincts are  not  always  blind  or  invariable,  395.  Two  principles 
of  non-uniformity,  398.  Enumeration  of  instincts  in  man,  406. 
Description  of  fear,  407. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Will    .  415 

Voluntary  acts,  415.  They  are  secondary  performances,  415. 
No  third  kind  of  idea  is  called  for,  418.  The  motor-cue,  420. 
Ideo-motor  action,  432.  Action  after  deliberation,  428.  Five 
chief  types  of  decision,  429.  The  feeling  of  effort,  434. 
Healthiness  of  will,  435.  Unhealthiness  of  will,  436.  The 
explosive  will :  (1)  from  defective  inhibition,  437  ;  (2)  from 
exaggerated  impulsion,  439.  The  obstructed  will,  441.  Effort 
feels  like  an  original  force,  442.  Pleasure  and  pain  as 
springs  of  action,  444.  What  holds  attention  determines  ac- 
tion,  448.      Will   is  a    relation    between  the  mind  and  its 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 


PAGK 

'ideas,'  449.  Volitional  effort  is  efEort  of  attention,  450.  The 
question  of  free-will,  455.  Ethical  importance  of  the  phe- 
nomenon of  effort,  458. 


EPILOGUE. 

Psychology  and  Philosophy    .  t        ,        .  461 

What  the  word  metaphysics  means,  461.  Relation  of  con- 
sciousness to  the  brain,  462.  The  relation  of  states  of  mind  to 
their  '  objects,'  464.  The  changing  character  of  consciousness, 
466.  States  of  consciousness  themselves  are  not  verifiable 
facts,  467. 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


CHAPTEE  I. 
INTRODUCTORY. 

The  definition  of  Psychology  maybe  best  given  m  '*•• 
words  of  Professor  Ladd,  as  the  description  and  exp;  * 
Hon  of  states  of  consciousness  as  such.  By  states  ot  con- 
sciousness are  meant  such  things  as  sensations,  desires, 
emotions,  cognitions,  reasonings,  decisions,  volitions,  and 
the  like.  Their  'explanation'  must  of  course  include 
the  study  of  their  causes,  conditions,  and  immediate  con- 
sequences, so  far  as  these  can  be  ascertained. 

Psychology  is  to  be  treated  as  a  natural  sciencf  i  is 
book.  This  requires  a  word  of  commentary.  ^  os  .  i 
ers  have  a  faith  that  at  bottom  there  is  but  one  o-ie;.o„  ci 
all  things,  and  that  until  all  is  known,  no  one  thing  can  be 
completely  known.  Such  a  science,  if  realized,  would  be 
Philosophy.  Meanwhile  it  is  far  from  being  realized ;  and 
instead  of  it,  we  have  a  lot  of  beginnings  of  knowledge 
made  in  different  places,  and  kept  separate  from  each  other 
merely  for  practical  convenience'  sake,  until  with  later 
growth  they  may  run  into  one  body  of  Truth.  These  provi- 
sional beginnings  of  learning  we  call  '  the  Sciences '  in  the 
plural.  In  order  not  to  be  unwieldy,  every  such  science 
has  to  stick  to  its  own  arbitrarily-selected  problems,  and  to 
ignore  all  others.  Every  science  thus  accepts  certain  data 
unquestioningly,  leaving  it  to  the  other  parts  of  Philosophy 


*  PSYCHOLOGY. 

to  scrutinize  their  significance  and  truth.  All  the  natural 
sciences,  for  example,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  farther  re- 
0p  li  u  leads  to  Idealism,  assume  that  a  world  of  matter 
c  isti  together  independently  of  the  perceiving  mind. 
M  cal  Science  assumes  this  matter  to  have  '  mass '  and 

to  exert  'force,'  defining  these  terms  merely  phenomenally, 
and  not  troubling  itself  about  certain  unintelligibilities 
which  they  present  on  nearer  reflection.  Motion  similarly 
is  assumed  by  mechanical  science  to  exist  independently  of 
the  mind,  in  spite  of  the  difficulties  involved  in  the 
assumption.  So  Physics  assumes  atoms,  action  at  a  dis- 
tance, etc.,  uncritically;  Chemistry  uncritically  adopts  all 
the  data  of  Physics;  and  Physiology  adopts  those  of  Chem- 
fcry  Psychology  as  a  natural  science  deals  with  things  in 
s;u.e  partial  and  provisional  way.  In  addition  to  the 
erial  world'  with  all  its  determinations,  which  the 
oiher  sciences  of  nature  assume,  she  assumes  additional 
data  peculiarly  her  own,  and  leaves  it  to  more  developed 
parts  of  Philosophy  to  test  their  ulterior  significance  and 
truth.     These  data  are  — 

1.  Thoughts  and  feelings,  or  whatever  other  names  tran- 
sitory states  of  consciousness  may  be  known  by. 

2.  Knowledge,  by  these  states  of  consciousness,  of  other 
things.  These  things  may  be  material  objects  and  events, 
or  other  states  of  mind.  The  material  objects  may  be 
either  near  or  distant  in  time  and  space,  and  the  states  of 
mind  may  be  those  of  other  people,  or  of  the  thinker  him- 
self at  some  other  time. 

How  one  thing  can  know  another  is  the  problem  of  what 
is  called  the  Theory  of  Knowledge.  How  such  a  thing  as 
a  'state  of  mind'  can  be  at  all  is  the  problem  of  what  has 
been  called  Rational,  as  distinguished  from  Empirical, 
Psychology.  The  full  truth  about  states  of  mind  cannot 
be  known  until  both  Theory  of  Knowledge  and  Rational 
Psychology  have  said  their  say.  Meanwhile  an  immense 
amount  of  provisional  truth  about  them  can  be  got  to- 
gether, which  will  work  in  with  the  larger  truth  and  be 


INTRODUCTORY.  3 

interpreted  by  it  when  the  proper  time  arrives.  Such  a 
provisional  body  of  propositions  about  states  of  mind,  and 
about  the  cognitions  which  they  enjoy,  is  what  I  mean  by 
Psychology  considered  as  a  natural  science.  On  any  ul- 
terior theory  of  matter,  mind,  and  knowledge,  the  facts  and 
laws  of  Psychology  thus  understood  will  have  their  value. 
If  critics  find  that  this  natural-science  point  of  view  cuts 
things  too  arbitrarily  short,  they  must  not  blame  the  book 
which  confines  itself  to  that  point  of  view;  rather  must 
they  go  on  themselves  to  complete  it  by  their  deeper 
thought.  Incomplete  statements  are  often  practically  nec- 
essary. To  go  beyond  the  usual  e scientific'  assumptions 
in  the  present  case,  would  require,  not  a  volume,  but  a 
shelfful  of  volumes,  and  by  the  present  author  such  a  shelf- 
ful  could  not  be  written  at  all. 

Let  it  also  be  added  that  the  human  mind  is  all  that  can 
be  touched  upon  in  this  book.  Although  the  mental  life  of 
lower  creatures  has  been  examined  into  of  late  years  with 
some  success,  we  have  no  space  for  its  consideration  here, 
and  can  only  allude  to  its  manifestations  incidentally  when 
they  throw  light  upon  our  own. 

Mental  facts  cannot  be  properly  studied  apart  from  the  phys- 
ical environment  of  which  they  take  cognizance.  Tin  gre;'.t 
fault  of  the  older  rational  psychology  was  to  set  up  I'd  souJ 
as  an  absolute  spiritual  being  with  certain  faculties  A  ita 
own  by  which  the  several  activities  of  remembering,  imagin- 
ing, reasoning,  willing,  etc.,  were  explained,  almost  Avithout 
reference  to  the  peculiarities  of  the  world  with  which  these 
activities  deal.  But  the  richer  insight  of  modern  days 
perceives  that  our  inner  faculties  are  adapted  in  advance 
to  the  features  of  the  world  in  which  we  dwell,  adapted,  I 
mean,  so  as  to  secure  our  safety  and  prosperity  in  its  midst. 
Not  only  are  our  capacities  for  forming  new  habits,  for 
remembering  sequences,  and  for  abstracting  general  prop- 
erties from  things  and  associating  their  usual  consequences 
with  them,  exactly  the  faculties  needed  for  steering  us  in 
this  world  of  mixed  variety  and  uniformity,  but  our  emo- 


4  PSYCHOLOGY. 

tions  and  instincts  are  adapted  to  very  special  features  of 
that  world.  In  the  main,  if  a  phenomenon  is  important 
for  our  welfare,  it  interests  and  excites  us  the  first  time  we 
come  into  its  presence.  Dangerous  things  fill  us  with  invol- 
untary fear;  poisonous  things  with  distaste;  indispensa- 
ble things  with  appetite.  Mind  and  world  in  short  have 
been  evolved  together,  and  in  consequence  are  something 
of  a  mutual  fit.  The  special  interactions  between  the  outer 
order  and  the  order  of  consciousness,  by  which  this  harmony, 
such  as  it  is,  may  in  the  course  of  time  have  come  about, 
have  been  made  the  subject  of  many  evolutionary  specula- 
tions, which,  though  they  cannot  so  far  be  -aid  to  be  con- 
clusive, have  at  least  refreshed  and  enriched  the  whole  sub- 
ject, and  brought  all  sorts  of  new  questions  to  the  light. 

The  chief  result  of  all  this  more  modern  view  is  the 

gradually  growing  conviction  that  mental  life  is  primarily 

^ekological;  that  is  to  say,  that  our  various  ways  of  feeling 

id  ,'  inking  have  grown  to  be  what  they  are  because  of 

eir  ...lity  in  shaping  our  reactions  on  the  outer  world. 

On  the  whole,  few  recent  formulas  have  done  more  service 

i  vlogy  than  the  Spencerian  one  that  the  essence  of 

fe  and  bodily  life  are  one,  namely,  '  the  adjust- 

inner  to  outer  relations.'     The  adjustment  is  to 

wiiuibaiately  present  objects  in  lower  animals  and  in  infants. 

It  is  to  objects  more  and  more  remote  in  time  and  space, 

and   inferred  by  means  of   more  and  more  complex  and 

exact  processes  of  reasoning,  when  the  grade  of  mental 

development  grows  more  advanced. 

Pr-narily  then,  and  fundamentally,  the  mental  life  is  for 
fl,    |.     e  of  action  of  a  preservative  sort.     Secondarily  and 
ntally  it  does  many  other  things,  and  may  even,  when 
ill  '  adapted,'  lead  to  its  possessor's  destruction.     Psychol- 
ogy, taken  in  the  widest  way,  ought  to  study  every  sort  of 
mental  activity,   the  useless   and    harmful   sorts   as  well 
i-hat  which  is  '  adapted.'     But  the  study  of  the  harmful 
•ntal  life  has   been  made  the  subject  of  a  special 
called  *  Psychiatry  '—the  science  of  insanity— and 


INTRO  D  UCTOR  7.  5 

the  study  of   the   useless  is   made   over  to   '  ±        ■    •'■$.' 
^Esthetics  and  Psychiatry  will  receive  no  special  m 
this  book. 

All  mental   states   (no  matter  what  their  ch 
regards  utility  may  be)  are  followed  by  bodily  z  ~  :» 

some  sort.  They  lead  to  inconspicuous  changes  L 
ing,  circulation,  general  muscular  tension,  and  glandular  or 
other  visceral  activity,  even  if  they  do  not  lead  to  conspi- 
cuous movements  of  the  muscles  of  voluntary  life.  Not 
only  certain  particular  states  of  mind,  then  (such  i ;  >se 
called  volitions,  for  example),  but  states  of  mind  .  *  such, 
all  states  of  mind,  even  mere  thoughts  and  iee~  re 

motor  in  their  consequences.  This  will  be  made  manifest 
in  detail  as  our  study  advances.  Meanwhile  let  it  be  set 
down  as  one  of  the  fundamental  facts  of  the  science  with 
which  we  are  engaged. 

It  was  said  above  that  the  '  conditions '  of  states  of  con- 
sciousness must  be  studied.  The  immediate  conditi  on  of 
a  state  of  consciousness  is  an  activity  of  some  sort  in  \& 
cerebral  hemispheres.  This  proposition  is  supported  b;y  j 
many  pathological  facts,  and  laid  by  physiologists  at  the 
base  of  so  many  of  their  reasonings,  that  to  the  medically 
educated  mind  it  seems  almost  axiomatic.  It  would  be 
hard,  however,  to  give  any  short  and  peremptory  proof  of 
the  unconditional  dependence  of  mental  action  upon  neural 
change.  That  a  general  and  usual  amount  of  dependence 
exists  cannot  possibly  be  ignored.  One  has  only  to  con- 
sider how  quickly  consciousness  may  be  (so  far  as  we  know) 
abolished  by  a  blow  on  the  head,  by  rapid  loss  of  blood,  by 
an  epileptic  discharge,  by  a  full  dose  of  alcohol,  opium, 
ether,  or  nitrous  oxide — or  how  easily  it  may  be  altered  in 
quality  by  a  smaller  dose  of  any  of  these  agents  or  of  othp 
or  by  a  fever, — to  see  how  at  the  mercy  of  bodily  har  ni 
our  spirit  is.  A  little  stoppage  of  the  gall-duct,  a  u,i  alio  ,vr 
of  cathartic  medicine,  a  cup  of  strong  coffee  at  the  proper 
moment,  will  entirely  overturn  for  the  time  a  man's  views 
of  life.    Our  moods  and  resolutions  are  more  determined 


6  PSYCHOLOGY. 

by  the  condition  of  our  circulation  than  by  our  logical 
••T'V  Is.  Whether  a  man  shall  be  a  hero  or  a  coward  is 
u  '  »>.cer  of  his  temporary  'nerves.'  In  many  kinds  of 
■  ity,  though  by  no  moans  in  all,  distinct  alterations  of 
.  rain-tissue  haye  been  found.  Destruction  of  certain 
ueiinite  portions  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres  involves  losses 
of  memory  and  of  acquired  motor  faculty  of  quite  determi- 
nate sorts,  to  which  we  shall  revert  again  under  the  title  of 
aphasias.  Taking  all  such  facts  together,  the  simple  and 
radical  conception  dawns  upon  the  mind  that  mental  action 

Lay  be  uniformly  and  absolutely  a  function  of  brain-action, 
varying  as  the  latter  varies,  and  being  to  the  brain-action 
as  effect  to  cause. 

This  conception  is  the  'working  hypothesis'  which 
underlies  all  the  'physiological  psychology'  of  recent 
years,  and  it  will  be  the  working  hypothesis  of  this  book. 
Taken  thus  absolutely,  it  may  possibly  be  too  sweeping  a 
statement  of  what  in  reality  is  only  a  partial  truth.  But 
the  only  way  to  make  sure  of  its  unsatisfactoriness  is  to 
apply  it  seriously  to  every  possible  case  that  can  turn  up. 
To  work  an  hypothesis  '  for  all  it  is  worth  '  is  the  real,  and 
often  the  only,  way  to  prove  its  insufficiency.  I  shall  there- 
for s  ass:  ae  without  scruple  at  the  outset  that  the  uniform 
•  h-'tI.t  -n  of  brain-states  with  mind-states  is  a  law  of  na- 
tu.  o.  The  interpretation  of  the  law  in  detail  will  best  show 
where  its  facilities  and  where  its  difficulties  lie.  To  some 
readers  such  an  assumption  will  seem  like  the  most  unjus- 
tifiable a  pri ori  materialism.  In  one  sense  it  doubtless  is 
materialism:  it  puts  the  Higher  at  the  mercy  of  the  Lower. 
But  although  we  affirm  that  the  coming  to  pass  of  thought 
is  a  consequence  of  mechanical  laws, — for,  according  to 
another  'working  hypothesis/  that  namely  of  physiology, 
the     ws  of  brain-action  are  at  bottom  mechanical  laws, — 

e  ('i>  not  in  the  least  explain  the  nature  of  thought  by 
affirming  this  dependence,  and  in  that  latter  sense  our 
proposition  is  not  materialism.  The  authors  who  most 
unconditionally  affirm   the   dependence  of   our   though-ts 


INTRODUCTORY.  7 

on  our  brain  to  be  a  fact  are  often  the  loudest  to  insist  that 
the  fact  is  inexplicable,  and  that  the  intimate  essence  of 
consciousness  can  never  be  rationally  accounted  for  by  any 
material  cause.  It  will  doubtless  take  several  generations 
of  psychologists  to  test  the  hypothesis  of  dependence 
with  anything  like  minuteness.  The  books  which  postu- 
late it  will  be  to  some  extent  on  conjectural  ground. 
But  the  student  will  remember  that  the  Sciences  constantly 
have  to  take  these  risks,  and  habitually  advance  by  zig- 
zagging from  one  absolute  formula  to  another  which  cor- 
rects  it  by  going  too  far  the  other  way.  At  present  Psychol- 
ogy is  on  the  materialistic  tack,  and  ought  in  the  interests 
of  ultimate  success  to  be  allowed  full  headway  even  by 
those  who  are  certain  she  will  never  fetch  the  port  without 
putting  down  the  helm  once  more.  The  only  thing  that  is 
perfectly  certain  is  that  when  taken  up  into  the  total  body 
of  Philosophy,  the  formulas  of  Psychology  will  appear  with 
a  very  different  meaning  from  that  which  they  suggest  so 
long  as  they  are  studied  from  the  point  of  view  of  an 
abstract  and  truncated  'natural  science/  however  practi- 
cally necessary  and  indispensable  their  study  from  such  a 
provisional  point  of  view  may  be. 

The  Divisions  of  Psychology. — So  far  as  possible,  then, 
we  are  to  study  states  of  consciousness  in  correlation  with 
their  probable  neural  conditions.  Now  the  nervous  system 
is  well  understood  to-day  to  be  nothing  but  a  machine  for 
receiving  impressions  and  discharging  reactions  preserva- 
tive to  the  individual  and  his  kind — so  much  of  physiology 
the  reader  will  surely  know.  Anatomically,  therefore,  the 
nervous  system  falls  into  three  main  divisions,  comprising — 

1)  The  fibres  which  carry  currents  in ; 

2)  The  organs  of  central  redirection  of  them;  and 

3)  The  fibres  which  carry  them  out. 

Functionally,  we  have  sensation,  central  reflection,  and 
motion,  to  correspond  to  these  anatomical  divisions.  In 
Psychology  we  may  divide  our  work  according  to  a  similar 


8  PSYCHOLOGY. 

scheme,  and  treat  successively  of  three  fundamental  con- 
scious processes  and  their  conditions.  The  first  will  be 
Sensation;  the  second  will  be  Cerebration  or  Intellection; 
the  third  will  be  the  Tendency  to  Action.  Much  vagueness 
results  from  this  division,  but  it  has  practical  conveniences 
for  such  a  book  as  this,  and  they  may  be  allowed  to  pre- 
vail over  whatever  objections  may  be  urged. 


CHAPTEK  II. 

SENSATION  IN  GENERAL. 

Incoming  nerve-currents  are  the  only  agents  which  nor- 
mally affect  the  brain.  The  human  nerve-centres  are  sur- 
rounded by  many  dense  wrappings  of  which  the  effect  is 
to  protect  them  from  the  direct  action  of  the  forces  of  the 
outer  world.  The  hair,  the  thick  skin  of  the  scalp,  the 
skull,  and  two  membranes  at  least,  one  of  them  a  tough 
one,  surround  the  brain;  and  this  organ  moreover,  like  the 
spinal  cord,  is  bathed  by  a  serous  fluid  in  which  it  floats 
suspended.  Under  these  circumstances  the  only  things 
that  can  happen  to  the  brain  are : 

1)  The  dullest  and  feeblest  mechanical  jars ; 

2)  Changes  in  the  quantity  and  quality  of  the  blood- 
supply;  and 

3)  Currents  running  in  through  the  so-called  afferent  or 

centripetal  nerves. 

The  mechanical  jars  are  usually  ineffective;  the  effects 
of  the  blood-changes  are  usually  transient;  the  nerve-cur- 
rents, on  the  contrary,  produce  consequences  of  the  most 
vital  sort,  both  at  the  moment  of  their  arrival,  and  later, 
through  the  invisible  paths  of  escape  which  they  plough  in 
the  substance  of  the  organ  and  which,  as  we  believe,  remain 
as  more  or  less  permanent  features  of  its  structure.,  modify- 
ing its  action  throughout  all  future  time. 


10  PSYCHOLOGY. 

Each  afferent  nerve  comes  from  a  determinate  part  of 
the  periphery  and  is  played  upon  and  excited  to  its  inward 
activity  by  a  particular  force  of  the  outer  world.  Usually 
it  is  insensible  to  other  forces:  thus  the  optic  nerves  are 
not  impressible  by  air-waves,  nor  those  of  the  skin  by  light- 
waves.  The  lingual  nerve  is  not  excited  by  aromatic  ef- 
fluvia, the  auditory  nerve  is  unaffected  by  heat.  Each 
selects  from  the  vibrations  of  the  outer  world  some  one 
rate  to  which  it  responds  exclusively.  The  result  is  that 
our  sensations  form  a  discontinuous  series,  broken  by  enor- 
mous gaps.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  order 
of  vibrations  in  the  outer  world  is  anything  like  as  inter- 
rupted as  the  order  of  our  sensations.  Between  the  quick- 
est audible  air-waves  (40,000  vibrations  a  second  at  the 
outside)  and  the  slowest  sensible  heat-waves  (which  num- 
ber probably  billions),  Nature  must  somewhere  have  real- 
ized innumerable  intermediary  rates  which  we  have  no 
nerves  for  perceiving.  The  process  in  the  nerve-fibres 
themselves  is  very  likely  the  same,  or  much  the  same,  in 
all  the  different  nerves.  It  is  the  so-called  'current';  but 
the  current  is  started  by  one  order  of  outer  vibrations  in 
the  retina,  and  in  the  ear,  for  example,  by  another.  This  is 
due  to  the  different  terminal  organs  with  which  the  several 
afferent  nerves  are  armed.  Just  as  we  arm  ourselves  with 
a  spoon  to  pick  up  soup,  and  with  a  fork  to  pick  up  meat, 
so  our  nerve-fibres  arm  themselves  with  one  sort  of  end- 
apparatus  to  pick  up  air-waves,  with  another  to  pick  up 
ether-waves.  The  terminal  apparatus  always  consists  of 
modified  epithelial  cells  with  which  the  fibre  is  continuous. 
The  fibre  itself  is  not  directly  excitable  by  the  outer  agent 
which  impresses  the  terminal  organ.  The  optic  fibres  are 
unmoved  by  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun;  a  cutaneous  nerve- 
trunk  may  be  touched  with  ice  without  feeling  cold.*    The 

*The  subject  may  feel  pain,  however,  in  this  experiment;  and  it 
must  be  admitted  that  nerve-fibres  of  every  description,  terminal 
organs  as  well,  are  to  some  degree  excitable  by  mechanical  violence 
»nd  by  the  electric  current. 


SENSATION  IN  GENERAL.  11 

fibres  are  mere  transmitters;  the  terminal  organs  are  so 
many  imperfect  telephones  into  which  the  material  world 
speaks,  and  each  of  which  takes  np  but  a  portion  of  what 
it  says;  the  brain-cells  at  the  fibres'  central  end  are  as 
many  others  at  which  the  mind  listens  to  the  far-off  call. 

The  'Specific  Energies'  of  the  Various  Parts  of  the 
Brain. — To  a  certain  extent  anatomists  have  traced  definitely 
the  paths  which  the  sensory  nerve-fibres  follow  after  their 
entrance  into  the  centres,  as  far  as  their  termination  in 
the  gray  matter  of  the  cerebral  convolutions.*  It  will  be 
shown  on  a  later  page  that  the  consciousness  which  accom- 
panies the  excitement  of  this  gray  matter  varies  from  one 
portion  of  it  to  another.  It  is  consciousness  of  things  seen, 
when  the  occipital  lobes,  and  of  things  heard,  when  the 
upper  part  of  the  temporal  lobes,  share  in  the  excitement. 
Each  region  of  the  cerebral  cortex  responds  to  the  stimula- 
tion which  its  afferent  fibres  bring  to  it,  in  a  manner  with 
which  a  peculiar  quality  of  feeling  seems  invariably  cor- 
related. This  is  what  has  been  called  the  law  of  '  specific 
energies '  in  the  nervous  system.  Of  course  we  are  with- 
out even  a  conjectural  explanation  of  the  ground  of  such 
a  law.  Psychologists  (as  Lewes,  Wundt,  Rosenthal,  Gold- 
scheider,  etc.)  have  debated  a  good  deal  as  to  whether  the 
specific  quality  of  the  feeling  depends  solely  on  the  place, 
stimulated  in  the  cortex,  or  on  the  sort  of  current  which  the 
nerve  pours  in.  Doubtless  the  sort  of  outer  force  habitu- 
ally impinging  on  the  end-organ  gradually  modifies  the 
end-organ,  the  sort  of  commotion  received  from  the  end- 
organ  modifies  the  fibre,  and  the  sort  of  current  a  so-modi- 
fied fibre  pours  into  the  cortical  centre  modifies  the  centre. 
The  modification  of  the  centre  in  turn  (though  no  man 


*Thus  the  optic  nerve-fibres  are  traced  to  the  occipital  lobes,  the 
olfactory  tracts  go  to  the  lower  part  of  the  temporal  \obe  (hippocampal 
convolution),  the  auditory  nerve-fibres  pass  first  to  the  cerebellum, 
and  probably  from  thence  to  the  upper  part  of  the  temporal  lobe. 
These  anatomical  terms  used  in  this  chapter  will  be  explained  later 
The  cortex  is  the  gray  surface  of  the  convolutions. 


12  PSYCHOLOGY. 

can  guess  how  or  why)  seems  to  modify  the  resultant  con- 
sciousness. But  these  adaptive  modifications  must  be  ex- 
cessively slow;  and  as  matters  actually  stand  in  any  adult 
individual,  it  is  safe  to  say  that,  more  than  anything  else, 
the  place  excited  in  his  cortex  decides  what  kind  of  thing 
he  shall  feel.  Whether  we  press  the  retina,  or  prick,  cut, 
pinch,  or  galvanize  the  living  optic  nerve,  the  Subject  always 
feels  flashes  of  light,  since  the  ultimate  result  of  our  opera- 
tions is  to  stimulate  the  cortex  of  his  occipital  region. 
Our  habitual  ways  of  feeling  outer  things  thus  depend  on 
which  convolutions  happen  to  be  connected  with  the  par- 
ticular end-organs  Avhich  those  things  impress.  We  see  the 
sunshine  and  the  fire,  simply  because  the  only  peripheral 
end-organ  susceptible  of  taking  up  the  ether-waves  which 
these  objects  radiate  excites  those  particular  fibres  which 
run  to  the  centres  of  sight.  If  we  could  interchange  the 
inward  connections,  we  should  feel  the  world  in  altogether 
new  ways.  If,  for  instance,  we  could  splice  the  outer 
extremity  of  our  optic  nerves  to  our  ears,  and  that  of  our 
auditory  nerves  to  our  eyes,  we  should  hear  the  lightning 
and  see  the  thunder,  see  the  symphony  and  hear  the  con- 
ductor's movements.  Such  hypotheses  as  these  form  a  good 
training  for  neophytes  in  the  idealistic  philosophy ! 

Sensation  distinguished  from  Perception. — It  is  impossi- 
ble rigorously  to  define  a  sensation;  and  in  the  actual  life 
of  consciousness  sensations,  popularly  so  called,  and  per- 
ceptions merge  into  each  other  by  insensible  degrees.  All 
we  can  say  is  that  what  we  mean  by  sensations  are  first 
fit  i)i(js  in  the  way  of  consciousness.  They  are  the  immedi- 
ate results  upon  consciousness  of  nerve-currents  as  they 
enter  the  brain,  and  before  they  have  awakened  any  sug- 
gestions or  associations  with  past  experience.  But  it  is 
obvious  that  such  immediate  sensations  can  only  be  realized 
in  the  earliest  days  of  life.  They  are  all  but  impossible  to 
adults  with  memories  and  stores  of  associations  acquired. 
Prior  to  all  impressions  on  sense-organs,  the  brain  is 
plunged  in  deep  sleep  and  consciousness  is  practically  noo- 


SENSATION  IN  GENERAL.  13 

existent.  Even  the  first  weeks  after  birth  are  passed  in 
almost  unbroken  sleep  by  human  infants.  It  takes  a 
strong  message  from  the  sense-organs  to  break  this  slumber. 
In  i  new-born  brain  this  gives  rise  to  an  absolutely  pure 
sensation.  But  the  experience  leaves  its  'unimaginable 
touch'  on  the  matter  of  the  convolutions,  and  the  next  im- 
pression which  a  sense-crgan  transmits  produces  a  cerebral 
reaction  in  which  the  awakened  vestige  of  the  last  impres- 
sion plays  its  part.  Another  sort  of  feeling  and  a  higher 
grade  of  cognition  are  the  consequence.  '  Ideas '  about  the 
object  mingle  with  the  awareness  of  its  mere  sensible  pres- 
ence, we  name  it,  class  it,  compare  it,  utter  propositions 
concerning  it,  and  the  complication  of  the  possible  con- 
sciousness which  an  incoming  current  may  arouse,  goes  on 
increasing  to  the  end  of  life.  In  general,  this  higher  con- 
sciousness about  things  is  called  Perception,  the  mere 
inarticulate  feeling  of  their  presence  is  Sensation,  so  far  as 
we  have  it  at  all.  To  some  degree  we  seem  able  to  lapse 
into  this  inarticulate  feeling  at  moments  when  our  atten- 
tion is  entirely  dispersed. 

Sensations  are  cognitive.  A  sensation  is  thus  an  abstrac- 
tion seldom  realized  by  itself  ;  and  the  object  which  a  sen- 
sation knows  is  an  abstract  object  which  cannot  exist  alone. 
'Sensible  qualities'  are  the  objects  of  sensation.  The  sen- 
sations of  the  eye  are  aware  of  the  colors  of  things,  those  of 
the  ear  are  acquainted  with  their  sounds  ;  those  of  the  skin 
feel  their  tangible  heaviness,  sharpness,  warmth  or  coldness, 
etc.,  etc.  From  all  the  organs  of  the  body  currents  may 
come  which  reveal  to  us  the  quality  of  pain,  and  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  that  of  pleasure. 

Such  qualities  as  stickiness,  roughness,  etc.,  are  sup- 
posed to  be  felt  through  the  cooperation  of  muscular  sen- 
sations with  those  of  the  skin.  The  geometrical  qualities 
of  things,  on  the  other  hand,  their  shapes,  bignesses,  dis- 
tances, etc.  (so  far  as  we  discriminate  and  identify  them), 
are  by  most  psychologists  supposed  to  be  impossible  with- 
out the  evocation  of  memories  from  the  past;  and  the 


14  PSYCHOLOGY. 

cognition  of  these  attributes  is  thus  considered  to  exceed 
the  power  of  sensation  pure  and  simple. 

'  Knowledge  of  Acquaintance '  and  '  Knowledge  about.' — 
Sensation,  thus  considered,  differs  from  perception  only  in 
the  extreme  simplicity  of  its  object  or  content.  Its  object, 
being  a  simple  quality,  is  sensibly  homogeneous  ;  and  its 
function  is  that  of  mere  acquaintance  with  this  homo- 
geneous seeming  fact.  Perception's  function,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  that  of  knowing  something  about  the  fact.  But 
we  must  know  what  fact  we  mean,  all  the  while,  and  the 
various  whats  are  what  sensations  give.  Our  earliest 
thoughts  are  almost  exclusively  sensational.  They  give  us 
a  set  of  ivhats,  or  thats,  or  its ;  of  subjects  of  discourse  in 
other  words,  with  their  relations  not  yet  brought  out.  The 
first  time  we  see  light,  in  Oondillac's  phrase  we  are  it  rather 
than  see  it.  But  all  our  later  optical  knowledge  is  about 
what  this  experience  gives.  And  though  we  were  struck 
blind  from  that  first  moment,  our  scholarship  in  the  sub- 
ject  would  lack  no  essential  feature  so  long  as  our  memory 
remained.  In  training-institutions  for  the  blind  they  teach 
the  pupils  as  much  about  light  as  in  ordinary  schools. 
Reflection,  refraction,  the  spectrum,  the  ether-theory,  etc., 
are  all  studied.  But  the  best  taught  born-blind  pupil  of 
such  an  establishment  yet  lacks  a  knowledge  which  the 
least  instructed  seeing  baby  has.  They  can  never  show 
him  what  light  is  in  its 'first  intention';  and  the  loss  of 
that  sensible  knowledge  no  book-learning  can  replace.  All 
this  is  so  obvious  that  we  usually  lind  sensation  'postulated' 
as  an  element  of  experience,  even  by  those  philosophers 
who  are  least  inclined  to  make  much  of  its  importance,  or 
to  pay  respect  to  the  knowledge  which  it  brings. 

Sensations  distinguished  from  Images. — Both  sensation 
and  perception,  for  all  their  difference,  are  yet  alike  in  that. 
their  objects  appear  vivid,  lively,  and  present.  Objects 
merely  thought  of,  recollected,  or  imagined,  on  the  contrary, 
are  relatively  faint  and  devoid  of  this  pungency,  or  tang, 
this  quality  of  real  presence  which  the  objects  of  sensation 


SENSATION  IN  GENERAL.  15 

possess.  Now  the  cortical  brain-processes  to  which  sensa- 
tions are  attached  are  due  to  incoming  currents  from  the 
periphery  of  the  body — an  external  object  must  excite  the 
eye,  ear,  etc.,  before  the  sensation  comes.  Those  cortical 
processes,  on  the  other  hand,  to  which  mere  ideas  or  images 
are  attached  are  due  in  all  probability  to  currents  from 
other  convolutions.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  currents 
from  the  periphery  normally  awaken  a  kind  of  brain- 
activity  which  the  currents  from  other  convolutions  are 
inadequate  to  arouse.  To  this  sort  of  activity — a  pro- 
founder  degree  of  disintegration,  perhaps — the  quality  of 
vividness,  presence,  or  reality  in  the  object  of  the  resultant 
consciousness  seems  correlated. 

The  Exteriority  of  Objects  of  Sensation. — Every  thing  or 
quality  felt  is  felt  in  outer  space.  It  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive a  brightness  or  a  color  otherwise  than  as  extended  and 
outside  of  the  body.  Sounds  also  appear  in  space.  Con- 
tacts are  against  the  body's  surface  ;  and  pains  always 
occupy  some  organ.  An  opinion  which  has  had  much 
currency  in  psychology  is  that  sensible  qualities  are  first 
apprehended  as  in  the  mind  itself,  arid  then '  projected '  from 
it,  or  '  extradited,'  by  a  secondary  intellectual  or  super-sensa- 
tional mental  act.  There  is  no  ground  whatever  for  this 
opinion.  The  only  facts  which  even  seem  to  make  for  it 
can  be  much  better  explained  in  another  way,  as  we  shall  see 
later  on.  The  very  first  sensation  which  an  infant  gets  is 
for  him  the  outer  universe.  And  the  universe  which  he 
comes  to  know  in  later  life  is  nothing  but  an  amplifica- 
tion of  that  first  simple  germ  which,  by  accretion  on  the 
one  hand  and  intussusception  on  the  other,  has  grown 
so  big  and  complex  and  articulate  that  its  first  estate 
is  unrememberable.  In  his  dumb  awakening  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  something  there,  a  mere  this  as  yet  (or  some- 
thing for  which  even  the  term  this  would  perhaps  be 
too  discriminative,  and  the  intellectual  acknowledgment  of 
which  would  be  better  expressed  by  the  bare  interjection 
(lo!'),  the  infant  encounters  an  object  in  which  (though  it 


V 


16  PSYCHOLOGY 

w*j  given  in  a  pure  sensation)  all  the  'categories  of  the 
tderstanding'  are  contained.  It  has  externality,  objec- 
t  ity,  unity,  substantiality,  causality,  in  the  full  sense  in 
wnich  any  later  object  or  system  of  objects  has  these  things. 
Here  the  young  knower  meets  and  greets  his  world;  and 
the  miracle  of  knowledge  bursts  forth,  as  Voltaire  says,  as 
much  in  the  infant's  lowest  sensation  as  in  the  highest 
achievement  of  a  Newton's  brain. 

The  physiological  condition  of  this  first  sensible  experi- 
ence is  probably  many  nerve-currents  coming  in  from 
various  peripheral  organs  at  once  ;  but  this  multitude  of 
organic  conditions  does  not  prevent  the  consciousness  from 
being  one  consciousness.  We  shall  see  as  we  go  on  that 
it  can  be  one  consciousness,  even  though  it  be  due  to 
the  cooperation  of  numerous  organs  and  be  a  conscious- 
ness of  many  things  together.  The  Object  which  the 
numerous  inpouring  currents  of  the  baby  bring  to  his 
consciousness  is  one  big  blooming  buzzing  Confusion. 
That  Confusion  is  the  baby's  universe;  and  the  universe  of 
all  of  us  is  still  to  a  great  extent  such  a  Confusion,  poten- 
tially resolvable,  and  demanding  to  be  resolved,  but  not 
yet  actually  resolved,  into  parts.  It  appears  from  first  to 
last  as  a  space-occupying  thing.  So  far  as  it  is  unanalyzed 
and  unresolved  we  may  be  said  to  know  it  sensationally; 
but  as  fast  as  parts  are  distinguished  in  it  and  we  become 
aware  of  their  relations,  our  knowledge  becomes  perceptual 
or  even  conceptual,  and  as  such  need  not  concern  us  in  the 
present  chapter. 

The  Intensity  of  Sensations. — A  light  may  be  so  weak  as 
not  sensibly  to  dispel  the  darkness,  a  sound  so  low  as  not 
to  be  heard,  a  contact  so  faint  that  we  fail  to  notice  it.  In 
other  words,  a  certain  finite  amount  of  the  outward  stimu- 
lus is  required  to  produce  any  sensation  of  its  presence  at 
all.  This  is  called  by  Fechner  the  law  of  the  threshold — 
something  must  be  stepped  over  before  the  object  can  gain 
entrance  to  the  mind.  An  impression  just  above  the 
threshold  is  called  the  minimum   visibile,  audibile,  etc. 


SENSATION  IN  GENERAL. 


17 


From  this  point  onwards,  as  the  impressing  force  increases, 
the  sensation  increases  also,  though  at  a  slower  rate,  until 
at  last  an  none  of  the  sensation  is  reached  which  no  increase 
in  the  stimulus  can  make  sensibly  more  great.  Usually, 
before  the  acme,  pain  begins  to  mix  with  the  specific  char- 
acter of  the  sensation.  This  is  definitely  observable  in 
the  cases  of  great  pressure,  intense  heat,  cold,  light,  and 
sound;  and  in  those  of  smell  and  taste  less  definitely  so 
only  from  the  fact  that  we  can  less  easily  increase  the  force 
of  the  stimuli  here.  On  the  other  hand,  all  sensations, 
however  unpleasant  when  more  intense,  are  rather  agree- 
able than  otherwise  in  their  very  lowest  degrees.  A  faintly 
bitter  taste,  or  putrid  smell,  may  at  least  be  interesting. 

Weber's  Law. — I  said  that  the  intensity  of  the  sensation 
increases  by  slower  steps  than  those  by  which  its  exciting 


Fig.  1. 

cause  increases.  If  there  were  no  threshold,  and  if  every 
equal  increment  in  the  outer  stimulus  produced  an  equal 
increment  in  the  sensation's  intensity,  a  simple  straight  line 
would  represent  graphically  the  'curve'  of  the  relation 
between  the  two  things.  Let  the  horizontal  line  stand  for 
the  scale  of  intensities  of  the  objective  stimulus,  so  that  at 
0  it  has  no  intensity,  at  1  intensity  1,  and  so  forth.  Let 
the  verticals  dropped  from  the  slanting  line  stand  for  the 
sensations  aroused.  At  0  there  will  be  no  sensation;  at  1 
there  will  be  a  sensation  represented  by  the  length  of  the 
vertical  Sl — 1,  at  2  the  sensation  will  be  represented  by 


18  PSYCHOLOGY. 

S* — 2,  and  bo  on.  The  line  of  fi"s  will  rise  evenly  be- 
cause by  the  hypothesis  the  verticals  (or  sensations)  increase 
at  the  same  rate  as  the  horizontals  (or  stimuli)  to  which 
they  severally  correspond.  But  in  Nature,  as  aforesaid, 
they  increase  at  a  slower  rate.  If  each  step  forward  in  the 
horizontal  direction  be  equal  to  the  last,  then  each  step 
upward  in  the  vertical  direction  will  have  to  be  somewhat 
shorter  than  the  last;  the  line  of  sensations  will  be  convex 
on  top  instead  of  straight. 


Fig.  2. 

Fig.  2  represents  this  actual  state  of  things,  0  being 
the  zero-point  of  the  stimulus,  and  conscious  sensation, 
represented  by  the  curved  line,  not  beginning  until  the 
'  threshold '  is  reached,  at  which  the  stimulus  has  the 
value  3.  From  here  onwards  the  sensation  increases,  but 
it  increases  less  at  each  step,  until  at  last,  the  'acme'  being 
reached,  the  sensation-line  grows  flat.  The  exact  law  of 
retardation  is  called  Weber's  hue,  from  the  fact  that  he  first 
observed  it  in  the  case  of  weights.  I  will  quote  Wundt's 
account  of  the  law  and  of  the  facts  on  which  it  is  based. 

"  Every  one  knows  that  in  the  stilly  night  we  hear  things  unnoticed 
in  the  noise  of  day.  The  gentle  ticking  of  the  clock,  the  air  circulat- 
ing through  the  chimney,  the  cracking  of  the  chairs  in  the  room,  and 
a  thousand  other  slight  noises,  impress  themselves  upon  our  ear.  It 
is  equally  well  known  that  in  the  confused  hubbub  of  the  streets,  oj 
the  clamor  of  a  railway,  we  may  lose  not  only  what  our  neighbor 
says  to  us,  but  even  not  hear  tic  sound  of  our  own  voice.     The  stars 


SENSATION  IN  GENERAL  19 

winch  are  brightest  at  night  are  invisible  by  day;  and  although  wt 
see  the  moon  then,  she  is  far  paler  than  at  night.  Every  one  who  has 
had  to  deal  with  weights  knows  that  if  to  a  pound  in  the  hand  a 
second  pound  be  added,  the  difference  is  immediately  felt;  whilst  if 
it  be  added  to  a  hundredweight,  we  are  not  aware  of  the  difference  at 
all.  .  .  . 

'  The  sound  of  the  clock,  the  light  of  the  stars,  the  pressure  of  the 
pound,  these  are  all  stimuli  to  our  senses,  and  stimuli  whose  outward 
amount  remains  the  same.  What  then  do  these  experiences  teach  '] 
Evidently  nothing  but  this,  that  one  and  the  same  stimulus,  according 
to  the  circumstances  under  which  it  operates,  will  be  felt  either  more 
or  less  intensely,  or  not  felt  at  all.  Of  what  sort  now  is  the  alteration 
in  the  circumstances  upon  which  this  alteration  in  the  feeling  may 
depend  ?  On  considering  the  matter  closely  we  see  that  it  is  every- 
where of  one  and  the  same  kind.  The  tick  of  the  clock  is  a  feeble 
stimulus  for  our  auditory  nerve,  which  we  hear  plainly  when  it  is 
alone,  but  not  when  it  is  added  to  the  strong  stimulus  of  the  carriage- 
wheels  and  other  noises  of  the  day.  The  light  of  the  stars  is  a 
stimulus  to  the  eye.  But  if  the  stimulation  which  this  light  exerts 
be  added  to  the  strong  stimulus  of  daylight,  we  feel  nothing  of  it, 
although  we  feel  it  distinctly  when  it  unites  itself  with  the  feebler 
stimulation  of  the  twilight.  The  poundweight  is  a  stimulus  to  our 
skin,  which  we  feel  when  it  joins  itself  to  a  preceding  stimulus  of 
equal  strength,  but  which  vanishes  when  it  is  combined  with  a  sti- 
mulus a  thousand  times  greater  in  amount. 

"  We  may  therefore  lay  it  down  as  a  general  rule  that  a  stimulus, 
in  order  to  be  felt,  may  be  so  much  the  smaller  if  the  already  pre- 
existing stimulation  of  the  organ  is  small,  but  must  be  so  much  the 
larger,  the  greater  the  preexisting  stimulation  is.  .  .  .  The  simplest 
relation  would  obviously  be  that  the  sensation  should  increase  in 
identically  the  same  ratio  as  the  stimulus.  .  .  .  But  if  this  simplest 
of  all  relations  prevailed,  .  .  .  the  light  of  the  stars,  e.g.,  ought  to 
make  as  great  an  addition  to  the  daylight  as  it  does  to  the  darkness  of 
the  nocturnal  sky,  and  this  we  know  to  be  not  the  case.  .  .  .  So  it  is 
clear  that  tbe  strength  of  the  sensations  does  not  increase  in  propor- 
tion to  the  amount  of  the  stimuli,  but  more  slowly.  And  now  comes 
the  question,  in  what  proportion  does  the  increase  of  the  sensation 
grow  less  as  the  increase  of  the  stimulus  grows  greater  ?  To  answer 
this  question,  every-day  experiences  do  not  suffice.  We  need  exact 
measurements,  both  of  the  amounts  of  the  various  stimuli,  and  of  the 
intensity  of  the  sensations  themselves. 

"  How   to   execute   these   measurements,   however,    is   something 
which  daily  experience  suggests.     To  measure  the  strength  of  sensa 
tions  is,  as  we  saw,  impossible  ;  we  can  only  measure  the  difference  of 


20  PSYCHOLOGY. 

sensations.  Experience  showed  us  what  very  unequal  differences  of 
sensation  might  come  from  equal  differences  of  outward  stimulus 
But  all  these  experiences  expressed  themselves  in  one  kind  of  fact, 
that  the  same  difference  of  stimulus  could  in  one  case  be  felt,  and  in 
another  case  not  felt  at  all — a  pound  felt  if  added  to  another  pound, 
but  not  if  added  to  a  hundredweight,  .  .  .  We  can  quickest  reach  a 
result  with  our  observations  if  we  start  with  an  arbitrary  strength  of 
stimulus,  notice  what  sensation  it  gives  us,  and  then  see  how  much  ice 
can  increase  the  stimulus  without  making  the  sensation  seem  to  change. 
If  we  carry  out  such  observations  with  stimuli  of  varying  absolute 
amounts,  we  shall  be  forced  to  choose  in  an  equally  varying  way  the 
amounts  of  addition  to  the  stimulus  which  are  capable  of  giving  us  a 
just  barely  perceptible  feeling  of  more.  A  light  to  be  just  percepti- 
ble in  the  twilight  need  not  be  near  as  bright  as  the  starlight;  it  must 
be  far  brighter  to  be  just  perceived  during  the  day.  If  now  we  insti- 
tute such  observations  for  all  possible  strengths  of  the  various 
stimuli,  and  note  for  each  strength  the  amount  of  addition  of  the 
latter  required  to  produce  a  barely  perceptible  alteration  of  sensation, 
we  shall  have  a  series  of  figures  in  which  is  immediately  expressed 
the  law  according  to  which  the  sensation  alters  when  the  stimulation 
is  increased.  ..." 

Observations  according  to  this  method  are  particularly 
easy  to  make  in  the  spheres  of  light,  sound,  and  pressure. 
Beginning  with  the  latter  case, 

"  We  find  a  surprisingly  simple  result.  The  barely  sensible  addition 
to  the  original  weight  must  stand  exactly  in  the  same  proportion  to  it, 
be  the  same  fraction  of  it,  no  matter  what  the  absolute  value  may  be 
of  the  weights  on  which  the  experiment  is  made.  ...  As  the  average 
of  a  number  of  experiments,  this  fraction  is  found  to  be  about  £;  that 
is,  no  matter  what  pressure  there  may  already  be  made  upon  the  skin, 
an  increase  or  a  diminution  of  the  pressure  will  be  felt,  as  soon  as  the 
added  or  subtracted  weight  amounts  to  one  third  of  the  weight  origl 
nally  there." 

Wundt  then  describes  how  differences  may  be  observed 
in  the  muscular  feelings,  in  the  feelings  of  heat,  in  those  of 
light,  and  in  those  of  sound;  and  he  concludes  thus: 

"  So  we  have  found  that  all  the  senses  whose  stimuli  we  are 
enabled  to  measure  accurately,  obey  a  uniform  law.  However  various 
may  be  their  several  delicacies  of  discrimination,  this  holds  true  of 
all,  that  t/te  increase  of  the  stimulus  necessary  to  produce  an  increase 


SENSATION  IN  GENERAL.  21 

of  the  sensation  bears  a,  constant  ratio  to  the  total  stimulus.  The 
figures  which  express  this  ratio  in  the  several  senses  may  be  shown 
thus  in  tabular  form  : 

Sensation  of  light , T^ 

Muscular  sensation -fa 

Feeling  of  pressure    \ 

"        "  warmth,    [■ J 

"  sound,        ) 

"  These  figures  are  far  from  giving  as  accurate  a  measure  as  might 
be  desired.  But  at  least  they  are  fit  to  convey  a  general  notion  of  the 
relative  discriminative  susceptibility  of  the  different  senses.  .  .  .  The 
important  law  which  gives  in  so  simple  a  form  the  relation  of  the 
sensation  to  the  stimulus  that  calls  it  forth  was  first  discovered  by  the 
physiologist  Ernst  Heinrich  Weber  to  obtain  in  special  cases."* 

Fechner's  Law. — Another  way  of  expressing  Weber's  law 
is  to  say  that  to  get  equal  positive  additions  to  the  sensa- 
tion, one  must  make  equal  relative  additions  to  the  stimu- 
lus. Professor  Fechner  of  Leipzig  founded  upon  Weber's 
law  a  theory  of  the  numerical  measurement  of  sensations, 
over  which  much  metaphysical  discussion  has  raged.  Each 
just  perceptible  addition  to  the  sensation,  as  we  gradually 
let  the  stimulus  increase,  was  supposed  by  him  to  be  a  unit 
of  sensation,  and  all  these  units  were  treated  by  him  as 
equal,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  equally  perceptible  incre- 
ments need  by  no  means  appear  equally  big  when  they 
once  are  perceived.  The  many  pounds  which  form  the 
just  perceptible  addition  to  a  hundredweight  feel  bigger 
when  added  than  the  few  ounces  which  form  the  just  per- 
ceptible addition  to  a  pound.  Fechner  ignored  this  fact. 
He  considered  that  if  n  distinct  perceptible  steps  of  in- 
crease might  be  passed  through  in  gradually  increasing  a 
stimulus  from  the  threshold-value  till  the  intensity  s  was 
felt,  then  the  sensation  of  s  was  composed  of  n  units,  which 
Avere  of  the  same  value  all  along  the  line.f    Sensations  once 

*  Vorlesungen  uber  Menschen  u.  Thierseele,  Lecture  VII. 
f  In  other  words,  8  standing  for  the  sensation  in  general,  and  d  for 
its  noticeable  increment,  we  have  the  equation  dS=  const.     The  in- 


22  PSYCHO  LOG  Y. 

represented  by  numbers,  psychology  may  become,  according 
to  Fechner,  an  'exact  '  science, susceptible  of  mathematical 
treatment.  His  general  formula  for  getting  at  the  number 
of  units  in  any  sensation  is  S  =  ('  log  R,  where  S  stands  for 
the  sensation,  /.'  for  the  stimulus  numerically  estimated, 
and  G  for  a  constant  that  must  be  separately  determined  by 
experiment  in  each  particular  order  of  sensibility.  The 
sensation  is  proportional  to  the  logarithm  of  the  stimulus; 
and  the  absolute  values,  in  units,  of  any  series  of  sensations 
might  be  got  from  the  ordinates  of  the  curve  in  Fig.  2,  if 
it  were  a  correctly  drawn  logarithmic  curve,  with  the 
thresholds  rightly  plotted  out  from  experiments. 

Fechner's  psycho-physic  formula,  as  he  called  it,  has 
been  attacked  on  every  hand;  and  as  absolutely  nothing 
practical  has  come  of  it,  it  need  receive  no  farther  notice 
here.  The  main  outcome  of  his  book  has  been  to  stir  up 
experimental  investigation  into  the  validity  of  Weber's 
law  (which  concerns  itself  merely  with  the  just  perceptible 
increase,  and  says  nothing  about  the  measurement  of  the 
sensation  as  a  whole)  and  to  promote  discussion  of  statis- 
tical methods.  Weber's  law,  as  will  appear  when  we  take 
the  senses,  seriatim,  is  only  approximately  verified.  The 
discussion  of  statistical  methods  is  necessitated  by  the  ex- 
traordinary fluctuations  of  our  sensibility  from  one  moment 
to  the  next.  It  is  found,  namely,  when  the  difference  of 
two  sensations  approaches  the  limit  of  discernibility,  that 
at  one  moment  we  discern  it  and  at  the  next  we  do  not. 
Our  incessant  accidental  inner  alterations  make  it  im- 
possible to  tell  just  what  the  least  discernible  increment  of 
the  sensation  is  without  taking  the  average  of  a  large  num- 
ber of  appreciations.  These  accidental  errors  are  as  likely 
to  increase  as  to  diminish  our  sensibility,  and  are  elimi- 
nated in  such  an  average,  for  those  above  and  those  below 

crement  of  stimulus  which  produces  tf&(call  \tdR)  meanwhile  vanes 
Fechner  calls  it  the  ' differential  threshold  ';  and  as  its  relative  value 

fo  M  is  always  the  same,  we  have  the  equation  -jr-  =  const. 


SENSATION  IN  GENERAL.  23 

the  line  then  neutralize  each  other  in  the  sum,  and  the  nor- 
mal sensibility,  if  there  be  one  (that  is,  the  sensibility  due 
to  constant  causes  as  distinguished  from  these  accidental 
ones),  stands  revealed.  The  methods  of  getting  the  aver- 
age all  have  their  difficulties  and  their  snares,  and  contro- 
versy over  them  has  become  very  subtle  indeed.  As  an 
instance  of  how  laborious  some  of  the  statistical  methods 
are,  and  how  patient  German  investigators  can  be,  I  may 
say  that  Fechner  himself,  in  testing  Weber's  law  for 
weights  by  the  so-called  '  method  of  true  and  false  cases,' 
tabulated  and  computed  no  less  than  24,576  separate  judg- 
ments. 

Sensations  are  not  compounds.  The  fundamental  objec- 
tion to  Fechner's  whole  attempt  seems  to  be  this,  that 
although  the  outer  causes  of  our  sensations  may  have  many 
parts,  every  distinguishable  degree,  as  well  as  every  dis- 
tinguishable quality,  of  the  sensation  itself  appears  to  be 
a  unique  fact  of  consciousness.  Each  sensation  is  a  com- 
plete integer.  "A  strong  one,"  as  Dr.  Mi'msterberg  says, 
"  is  not  the  multiple  of  a  weak  one,  or  a  compound  of 
many  weak  ones,  but  rather  something  entirely  new,  and  as 
it  were  incomparable,  so  that  to  seek  a  measurable  differ- 
ence between  strong  and  weak  sonorous,  luminous,  or  ther- 
mic sensations  would  seem  at  first  sight  as  senseless  as  to 
try  to  compute  mathematically  the  difference  between  salt 
and  sour,  or  between  headache  and  toothache.  It  is  clear 
riiat  if  in  the  stronger  sensation  of  light  the  weaker  sen  ■ 
sation  is  not  contained,  it  is  unpsychological  to  say  that  the 
former  differs  from  the  latter  by  a  certain  increment."  * 
Surely  our  feeling  of  scarlet  is  not  a  feeling  of  pink  with  a 
lot  more  pink  added;  it  is  something  quite  other  than 
pink.  Similarly  with  our  sensation  of  an  electric  arc-light: 
it  does  not  contain  that  of  many  smoky  tallow  candles  in 
itself.  Every  seiisation  presents  itself  us  an  indivisible 
unit;  and  it  is  quite  impossible  to  read  any  clear  meaning 
into  the  notion  that  they  are  masses  of  units  combined. 

*  Beitriige  zur  exp.  Psychol.,  Heft  3,  p.  4. 


24  PSTCnOLOOT. 

There  is  no  inconsistency  between  this  statement  and  tho 
fact  that,  starting  with  a  weak  sensation  and  increas- 
ing it,  we  feel  •more,'  'more/  'more,'  as  the  increase  goes 
on.  It  is  not  more  of  the  same  stuff  added,  so  to  speak: 
but  it  is  more  and  more  difference,  more  and  more  distance, 
from  tbe  starting-point,  which  we  feel.  In  the  chapter  on 
Discrimination  we  shall  see  that  Difference  can  be  perceived 
between  simple  things.  We  shall  see,  too,  that  differences 
themselves  differ — there  are  various  directions  of  differ- 
ence;  and  along  any  one  of  them  a  series  of  things  may  be 
arranged  so  as  to  increase  steadily  in  that  direction.  In 
any  such  series  the  end  differs  more  from  the  beginning 
than  the  middle  does.  Differences  of  'intensity'  form  one 
such  direction  of  possible  increase — so  our  judgments  of 
more  intensity  can  be  expressed  without  tbe  hypothesis 
that  more  units  have  been  added  to  a  growing  sum. 

The  so-called  'Law  of  Relativity.' — Weber's  law  seems 
only  one  case  of  the  still  Avider  law  that  the  more  we  have 
to  attend  to  the  less  capable  we  are  of  noticing  any  one 
detail.  The  law  is  obvious  where  the  things  differ  in 
kind.  How  easily  do  we  forget  a  bodily  discomfort  when 
conversation  waxes  hot;  how  little  do  we  notice  the  noises 
in  the  room  so  long  as  our  work  absorbs  us!  Ad  plura 
intentus  minus  est  ad  singula  sensus,  as  the  old  proverb 
says.  One  might  now  add  that  the  homogeneity  of  what 
we  have  to  attend  to  does  not  alter  the  result;  but  that  a 
mind  with  two  strong  sensations  of  the  same  sort  already 
before  it  is  incapacitated  by  their  amount  from  noticing 
the  detail  of  a  difference  between  them  which  it  would 
immediately  be  struck  by,  were  the  sensations  themselves 
weaker  and  consequently  endowed  with  less  distracting 
power. 

This  particular  idea  may  be  taken  for  what  it  is  worth.* 
Meanwhile  it  is  an  undoubted  general  fact  that  the  psychi- 

*  I  borrow  it  from  Ziehen :  Leitfaden  d.  Physiologischen  Psychologie. 
1891.  p.  36,  who  quotes  IJeriug's  version  of  it. 


SENSATION  IN  0 ENSEAL.  25 

cal  effect  of  incoming  currents  does  depend  on  what  other 
currents  may  be  simultaneously  pouring  in.  Not  only  the 
perceptibility  of  the  object  which  the  current  brings  before 
the  mind,  but  the  quality  of  it,  is  changed  by  the  other 
currents.  "  Simultaneous*  sensations  modify  each  other  " 
is  a  brief  expression  for  this  law.  "  We  feel  all  things  in 
relation  to  each  other  "  is  Wundt's  vaguer  formula  for  this 
general c  law  of  relativity,'  which  in  one  shape  or  other  has 
had  vogue  since  Hobbes's  time  in  psychology.  Much  mys- 
tery has  been  made  of  it,  but  although  we  are  of  course 
ignorant  of  the  more  intimate  processes  involved,  there 
seems  no  ground  to  doubt  that  they  are  physiological,  and 
come  from  the  interference  of  one  current  with  another. 
A  current  interfered  with  might  naturally  give  rise  to  a 
modified  sensation. 

Examples  of  the  modification  in  question  are  easy  to 
find.f  Notes  make  each  other  sweeter  in  a  chord,  and  so 
do  colors  when  harmoniously  combined.  A  certain  amount 
of  skin  dipped  in  hot  water  gives  the  perception  of  a  cer- 
tain heat.  More  skin  immersed  makes  the  heat  much  more 
intense,  although  of  course  the  water's  heat  is  the  same. 
Similarly  there  is  a  chromatic  minimum  of  size  in  objects. 
The  image  they  cast  on  the  retina  must  needs  excite  a 
sufficient  number  of  fibres,  or  it  will  give  no  sensation  of 
color  at  all.  Weber  observed  that  a  thaler  laid  on  the  skin 
of  the  forehead  feels  heavier  when  cold  than  when  warm. 
Urbantschitsch  has  found  that  all  our  sense-organs  influ- 
ence each  other's  sensations.  The  hue  of  patches  of  color 
so  distant  as  not  to  be  recognized  was  immediately,  in  his 
patients,  perceived  when  a  tuning-fork  was  sounded  close 
to  the  ear.     Letters  too  far  off  to  be  read  could  be  read 

*  Successive  ones  also;  but  I  consider  simultaneous  ones  only,  for 
simplicity's  sake. 

f  The  extreme  case  is  where  green  light  and  red,  e.g.  light  falling 
simultaneously  on  the  retina,  give  a  sensation  of  yellow.  But  I  ab- 
stract from  this  because  it  is  not  certain  that  the  incoming  currents 
here  affect  different  fibres  of  the  optic  nerve. 


26  PSYCHOLOGY. 

when  the  tuning-fork  was  heard,  etc.,  etc.  The  most  famil- 
iar examples  of  this  sort  of  thing  seem  to  be  the  increase  of 
pain  by  noise  or  light,  and  the  increase  of  nausea  by  all 
concomitant  sensal  ions. 

Effects  of  Contrast. — The  best-known  examples  of  the  way 
in  which  one  nerve-current  modifies  another  are  the  phe- 
nomena of  what  is  known  as  'simultaneous  color-contrast. 
Take  a  number  of  sheets  of  brightly  and  differently  col- 
ored papers,  lay  on  each  of  them  a  bit  of  one  and  the  same 
kind  of  gray  paper,  then  cover  each  sheet  with  some  trans- 
parent white  paper,  which  softens  the  look  of  both  the  gray 
paper  and  the  colored  ground.  The  gray  patch  will  appear 
m  each  case  tinged  by  the  color  complementary  to  the 
ground;  and  so  different  will  the  several  pieces  appear 
that  no  observer,  before  raising  the  transparent  paper,  will 
believe  them  all  cut  out  of  the  same  gray.  Helmholtz  has 
interpreted  these  results  as  being  due  to  a  false  application 
of  an  inveterate  habit — that,  namely,  of  making  allowance 
for  the  color  of  the  medium  through  which  things  are  seen. 
The  same  thing,  in  the  blue  light  of  a  clear  sky,  in  the  red-, 
dish-yellow  light  of  a  candle,  in  the  dark  brown  light  of  a 
polished  mahogany  table  which  may  reflect  its  image,  is 
always  judged  of  its  own  proper  color,  which  the  mind  adds 
out  of  its  own  knowledge  to  the  appearance,  thereby  cor- 
recting the  falsifying  medium.  In  the  cases  of  the  papers, 
according  to  Helmholtz,  the  mind  believes  the  color  of  the 
ground,  subdued  by  the  transparent  paper,  to  be  faintly 
spread  over  the  gray  patch.  But  a  patch  to  look  gray 
through  such  a  colored  film  would  have  really  to  be  of  the 
complementary  color  to  the  film.  Therefore  it  is  of  the 
complementary  color,  we  think,  and  proceed  to  see  it  of 
that  color. 

This  theory  has  been  shown  to  be  untenable  by  lining. 
The  discussion  of  the  facts  is  too  minute  Eor  recapitulation 
here,  but  suffice  it  to  saj  thai  it  proves  the  phenomenon 
to  be  physiological — a  case  of  the  way  in  «  hich,  when  sen- 
sory nerve-currents  run  in  together,  the  effect  of  each  on 


SENSATION  IN  GENERAL.  27 

consciousness  is  different  from  that  which  it  would  be  if 
they  ran  in  separately. 

'Successive  contrast'  differs  from  the  simultaneous  va- 
riety, and  is  supposed  to  be  due  to  fatigue.  The  facts  will 
be  noticed  under  the  head  of  'after-images/  in  the  sec- 
tion on  Vision.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that 
after-images  from  previous  sensations  may  coexist  with 
present  sensations,  and  the  two  may  modify  each  other  just 
us  coexisting  sensational  processes  do. 

Other  senses  than  sight  show  phenomena  of  contrast, 
but  they  are  much  less  obvious,  so  I  will  not  notice  them 
here.  We  can  now  pass  to  a  very  brief  survey  of  the  vari- 
ous senses  in  detail. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SIGHT. 

The  Eye's  Structure  is  described  in  all  the  books  on  an- 
atomy. I  will  only  mention  the  few  points  which  concern 
the  psychologist.*    It  is  a  flattish  sphere  formed  by  a  tough 

*  The  student  can  easily  verify  the  coarser  features  of  the  eye's 
anatomy  upon  a  bullock's  eye,  which  any  butcher  will  furnish. 
Clean  it  first  from  fat  and  muscles  and  study  its  shape,  etc.,  and  then 
(following  Uolding  Bird's  method)  make  an  incision  with  a  pointed 
scalpel  into  the  sclerotic  half  an  inch  from  the  edge  of  the  cornea, 
so  that  the  black  choroid  membrane  comes  into  view.  Next  with  one 
blade  of  a  pair  of  scissors  inserted  into  this  aperature,  cut  through 
sclerotic,  choroid,  and  retina  (avoid  wounding  the  membrane  of  the 
vitreous  body!)  all  round  the  eyeball  parallel  to  the  cornea's  edge. 

The  eyeball  is  thus  divided  into  two  parts,  the  anterior  one  contain- 
ing the  iris,  lens,  vitreous  body,  etc.,  whilst  the  posterior  one  contains 
most  of  the  retina.  The  two  parts  can  be  separated  by  immersing  the> 
eyeball  in  water,  cornea  downwards,  and  simply  pulling  off  the  por- 
tion to  which  the  optic  nerve  is  attached.  Floating  this  detached 
posterior  cap  in  water,  the  delicate  retina  will  be  seen  spread  out  over 
the  choroid  (which  is  partly  iridescent  in  the  ox  tribe);  and  by  turning 
the  cup  inside  out,  and  working  under  water  with  a  camel's-hair 
brush,  the  vessels  and  nerves  of  the  eyeball  may  be  detected. 

The  anterior  part  of  the  eyeball  can  then  be  attacked.  Seize  with 
forceps  on  each  side  the  edge  of  the  sclerotic  and  choroid  (not  includ- 
ing the  retina),  raise  the  eye  with  the  forceps  thus  applied  and  shake 
it  gently  till  the  vitreous  body,  lens,  capsule,  ligament,  etc  ,  drop  out 
by  their  weight,  and  separate  from  the  iris,  ciliary  processes,  cornea, 
and  sclerotic,  which  remains  in  the  forceps.  Examine  these  latter 
parts,  and  get  a  view  of  the  ciliary  muscle  which  appears  as  a  white 
line,  when  with  camel's-hair  brush  and  scalpel  the  choroid  membrane 
is  detached  from  the  sclerotic  as  far  forward  as  it  will  go.  Turning  to 
the  parts  that  cling  to  the  vitreous  body  observe  the  clear  ring  around 
the  lens,  and  radiating  outside  of  it  the  marks  made  by  the  ciliary 


SIGHT. 


20 


white  membrane  (the  sclerotic),  which  encloses  a  nervous 
surface  and  certain  refracting  media  (lens  and  '  humors  ' ) 
which  cast  a  picture  of  the  outer  world  thereon.     It  is  in 


Bet- 
CJton 


Fig.  3. 


processes  before  they  were  torn  away  from  its  suspensory  ligament. 
A  fine  capillary  tube  may  now  be  used  to  insufflate  tbe  clear  ring, 
just  below  tbe  letter  p  in  Fig.  3,  and  tbus  to  reveal  tbe  suspensory 
ligament  itself. 

All  these  parts  can  be  seen  in  section  in  a  frozen  *>ye  or  one  hard 
ened  in  alcohol. 


30 


PS  TCIIOLOa  T. 


fact  a  little  camera  obscura,  the  essential  part  of  which  is 

the  sensitive  plate. 

The  retina  is  what  corresponds  to 
this  plate.  The  optic  nerve  pierces  the 
sclerotic  shell  and  spreads  its  fibres 
radially  in  every  direction  over  its  in- 
side, forming  a  thin  translucent  film 
(see  Fig.  3,  Ret.).  The  fibres  pass 
into  a  complicated  apparatus  of  cells, 
'  granules,  and  branches  (Fig.  4),  and 
finally  end  in  the  so-called  rods  and 
cones  (Fig.  4, — 9),  which  are  the  specific 
organs  for  taking  up  the  influence  of 
the  waves  of  light.  Strange  to  say, 
these  end-organs  are  not  pointed  for- 
ward towards  the  light  as  it  streams 
through  the  pupil,  but  backwards  to- 
wards the  sclerotic  membrane  itself,  so 


Fio.  4. 


Fig  5  —Scheme  of  retinal  fibres,  after  Kiiss.  X<>p. 
optic  nerve:  S,  sclerotic;  Ch,  choroid;  R,  retina; 
P,  papilla  (blind  spot);  F,  fovea. 


that  the  light-waves  traverse  the  translucent  nerve-fibres, 
and  the  cellular  and  granular  layers  of  the  retina,  before 
they  touch  the  rods  and  cones  themselves.     (See  Fig.  5.) 


SIGHT.  31 

The  Blind  Spot. — The  optic  nerve-fibres  must  thus  b* 
nnimpressible  by  light  directly.  The  place  where  the 
nerve  enters  is  in  fact  entirely  blind,  because  nothing  but 
fibres  exist  there,  the  other  layers  of  the  retina  only  be- 
ginning round  about  the  entrance.  Nothing  is  easier  than 
to  prove  the  existence  of  this  blind  spot.  Close  the  right 
eye  and  look  steadily  with  the  left  at  the  cross  in  Fig.  6, 


Fig.  6. 

holding  the  book  vertically  in  front  of  the  face,  and  mov- 
ing it  to  and  fro.  It  will  be  found  that  at  about  a  foot  off 
the  black  disk  disappears;  but  when  the  page  is  nearer  or 
farther,  it  is  seen.  During  the  experiment  the  gaze  must 
be  kept  fixed  on  the  cross.  It  is  easy  to  show  by  measure- 
ment that  this  blind  spot  lies  where  the  optic  nerve  enters. 

The  Fovea. — Outside  of  the  blind  spot  the  sensibility  of 
the  retina  varies.  It  is  greatest  at  the  fovea,  a  little  pit 
lying  outwardly  from  the  entrance  of  the  optic  nerve,  and 
round  which  the  radiating  nerve-fibres  bend  without  pass- 
ing over  it.  The  other  layers  also  disappear  at  the  fovea, 
leaving  the  cones  alone  to  represent  the  retina  there.  The 
sensibility  of  the  retina  grows  progressively  less  towards  its 
periphery,  by  means  of  which  neither  colors,  shapes,  nor 
number  of  impressions  can  be  well  discriminated. 

In  the  normal  use  of  our  two  eyes,  the  eyeballs  are  ro- 
tated so  as  to  cause  the  two  images  of  any  object  which 
catches  the  attention  to  fall  on  the  two  fovea?,  as  the  spots 
of  acutest  vision.  This  happens  involuntarily,  as  any  one 
may  observe.  In  fact,  it  is  almost  impossible  not  to  'turn 
the  eyes,'  the  moment  any  peripherally  lying  object  does 
catch  our  attention;,  the  turning   of  the  eyes  being  only 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


another  name  for  such  rotation    of    the  eyeballs  as  will 
bring  the  foveas  under  the  object's  image. 


biliary  musc/e 
re/axed. 


Ciliary  muscle 
contracted. 


Fia.  7. 

Accommodation.  — The  focussing  or  sharpening  of  the 
image  is  performed  by  a  special  apparatus.  In  every  cam- 
era, the  farther  the  object  is  from  the  eye  the  farther  for- 
ward, and  the  nearer  the  object  is  to  the  eye  the  farther 
backward,  is  its  image  thrown.  In  photographers'  cameras 
the  back  is  made  to  slide,  and  can  be  drawn  away  from 
the  lens  when  the  object  that  casts  the  picture  is  near, 
and  pushed  forward  when  it  is  far.  The  picture  is  thus 
kept  always  sharp.  But  no  such  change  of  length  is 
possible  in  the  eyeball;  and  the  same  result  is  reached  in 
another  way.  The  lens,  namely,  grows  more  convex  when 
a  near  object  is  looked  at,  and  flatter  when  the  object  re- 
cedes. This  change  is  due  to  the  antagonism  of  the  circular 
'ligament'  in  which  the  lens  is  suspended,  and  the  'ciliary 
muscle.'  The  ligament,  when  the  ciliary  muscle  is  at  rest, 
assumes  such  a  spread-out  shape  as  to  keep  the  lens  rather 
flat.  But  the  lens  is  highly  elastic;  and  it  springs  into 
the  more  convex  form  which  is  natural  to  it  whenever  the 
ciliary  muscle,  by  contracting,  causes  the  ligament  to  relax 
its  pressure.  The  contraction  of  the  muscle,  by  thus  ren- 
dering the  lens  more  refractive,  adapts  the  eye  for  near 
objects  ('accommodates'  it  for  them,  as  we  say);  and  its 
relaxation,  by  rendering  the  lens  less  refractive,  adapts  the 
eye  for  distant  vision.    Accommodation  for  the  near  is  thus 


810  ST.  33 

the  more  active  change,  since  it  involves  contraction  of 
the  ciliary  muscle.  When  we  look  far  off,  we  simply  let 
our  eyes  go  passive.  We  feel  this  difference  in  the  effort 
when  we  compare  the  two  sensations  of  change. 

Convergence  accompanies  accommodation.  The  two  eyes 
act  as  one  organ ;  that  is,  when  an  object  catches  the  atten- 
tion, both  eyeballs  turn  so  that  its  images  may  fall  on  the 
foveas.  When  the  object  is  near,  this  naturally  requires 
them  to  turn  inwards,  or  converge;  and  as  accommodation 
then  also  occurs,  the  two  movements  of  convergence  and 
accommodation  form  a  naturally  associated  couple,  of  which 
it  is  difficult  to  execute  either  singly.  Contraction  of  the 
pupil  also  accompanies  the  accommodative  act.  When  we 
come  to  stereoscopic  vision,  it  will  appear  that  by  much 
practice  one  can  learn  to  converge  with  relaxed  accommo- 
dation, and  to  accommodate  with  parallel  axes  of  vision. 
These  are  accomplishments  which  the  student  of  psycho- 
logical optics  will  find  most  useful. 

Single  Vision  by  the  two  Retinas. — We  hear  single  with  two 
ears,  and  smell  single  with  two  nostrils,  and  we  also  see 
single  with  two  eyes.  The  difference  is  that  we  also  can 
see  double  under  certain  conditions,  whereas  under  no  con- 
ditions can  we  hear  or  smell  double.  The  main  conditions 
of  single  vision  can  be  simply  expressed. 

In  the  first  place,  impressions  on  the  two  foveas  always 
appear  in  the  same  place.  By  no  artifice  can  they  be 
made  to  appear  alongside  of  each  other.  The  result 
is  that  one  object,  casting  its  images  on  the  foveas  of 
the  two  converging  eyeballs  will  necessarily  always  ap- 
pear as  what  it  is,  namely,  one  object.  Furthermore,  if 
the  eyeballs,  instead  of  converging,  are  kept  parallel, 
and  two  similar  objects,  one  in  front  of  each,  cast  their 
respective  images  on  the  foveas,  the  two  will  also  appear 
as  one,  or  (in  common  parlance)  '  their  images  will  fuse.' 
To  verify  this,  let  the  reader  stare  fixedly  before  him 
as  if  through  the  paper  at  infinite  distance,  with  the 
black  spots  in  Fig.  8  in  front  of  his  respective  eyes.     He 


34  PSYCHOLOGY. 

will  thru  see  the  two  Mack  spots  swim  together,  as  11  were. 
and  combine  into  one,  which  appeal's  situated  between  their 

original  two  positions  am)  as  it'  opposite  the  root  of  his 
nose.  This  combined  spot  is  the  result  of  the  spots  oppo- 
site both  eyes  I  icing  seen  in  the  same  place.  But  in  addi- 
tion to  the  combined  spot,  each  eye  sees  also  the  spot  opposite 
the  other  eye.  To  the  right  eye  this  appears  to  the  left  of 
the  combined  spot,  to  the  left  eye  it  appears  to  the  right 
of  it;  so  that  what  is  seen  is  three  spots,  of  which  the 
middle  one   is  seen  by  both  eyes,  and   is  flanked   by  two 


Fig.  8. 

others,  each  seen  by  one.  That  such  are  the  facts  can  be 
tested  by  interposing  some  small  opaque  object  so  as  to 
cut  off  the  vision  of  either  of  the  spots  in  the  figure  from 
the  other  eye.  A  vertical  partition  in  the  median  plane, 
going  from  the  paper  to  the  nose,  will  effectually  confine 
each  eye's  vision  to  the  spot  in  front  of  it,  and  then  the 
single  combined  spot  will  be  all  that  appears.* 

If,  instead  of  two  identical  spots,  we  use  two  different 
figures,  or  two  differently  colored  spots,  as  objects  for  the 
two  foveae  to  look  at,  they  still  are  seen  in  the  same  place; 
but  since  they  cannot  appear  as  a  single  object,  they  appear 
there  alternately  displacing  each  other  from  the  view.  This 
is  the  phenomenon  called  retinal  rivalry. 

As  regards  the  parts  of  the  retinae  round  about  the  foveas, 
a  similar  correspondenee  obtains.     Any  impression  on  the 

*   This  vertical  partition    is    introduced    into   stereoscopes,  which 
otherwise  would  give  us  three  pictures  iustead  of  one. 


SIGHT. 


36 


upper  half  of  either  retina  makes  us  see  an  object  as  below, 
on  the  lower  half  as  above,  the  horizon;  and  on  the  right 
half  of  either  retina,  an  impression  makes  us  see  an  object 
to  the  left,  on  the  left  half  one  to  the  right,  of  the  median 
line.  Thus  each  quadrant  of  one  retina  corresponds  as  a 
whole  to  the  geometrically  similar  quadrant  of  the  other; 


Fig.  9. 


and  within  two  similar  quadrants,  al  and  ar  for  example, 
there  should,  if  the  correspondence  were  carried  out  in  de- 
tail, be  geometrically  similar  points  which,  if  impressed  at 
the  same  time  by  light  emitted  from  the  same  object,  should 
cause  that  object  to  appear  in  the  same  direction  to  either 
eye.  Experiment  verifies  this  surmise.  If  we  look  at  the 
starry  vault  with  parallel  eyes,  the  stars  all  seem  single; 
and  the  laws  of  perspective  show  that  under  the  circum- 
stances the  parallel  light-rays  coming  from  each  star  must 
impinge  on  points  within  either  retina  which  are  geometri- 
cally similar  to  each  other.  Similarly,  a  pair  of  spectacles 
held  an  inch  or  so  from  the  eyes  seem  like  one  large  median 
glass.  Or  we  may  make  an  experiment  like  that  with  the 
spots.  If  we  take  two  exactly  similar  pictures,  no  larger 
than  those  on  an  ordinary  stereoscopic  slide,  and  if  we  look 
at  one  with  each  eye  (a  median  partition  confining  the 
view)  we  shall  see  but  one  flat  picture,  all  of  whose  parts 
appear  single.  'Identical  retinal  points'  being  impressed, 
both  eyes  see  their  object  in  the  same  direction,  and  the 
two  objects  consequently  coalesce  into  one. 

Here  again  retinal  rivalry  occurs  if  the  pictures  differ. 
And   it   must   be   noted  that  when  the  experiment  is  per- 


36 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


formed  for  the  first  time  the  combined  picture  is  always 
far  from  Bharp.  This  is  due  to  the  difficulty  mentioned  on 
p.  33,  of  accommodal  ing  for  anything  as  near  as  the  surface 
of  the  paper,  whilst  at  the  same  time  the  convergence  is 
relaxed  so  that  each  eye  sees  the  picture  in  front  of  itself. 

Double  Images. —  New  it  is  an  immediate  consequence  of 
the  law  of  identical  location  of  images  falling  on  geometri- 
cally similar  points  that  images  which  fall  upon  geomet- 
rically disparate  points  of  the  two  retina)  mould  be  seen 
in   disparate   directions,  and  that  their  objects  should 


Fig.  10. 

consequently  appear  in  two  places,  or  look  double. 
Take  the  parallel  rays  from  a  star  falling  upon  two  eyes 
which  converge  upon  a  near  object,  0,  instead  of  being 
parallel  as  in  the  previously  instanced  case.  The  two 
fovea?  will  receive  the  images  of  0,  which  therefore  will 
look  single.  If  then  SL  and  SR  in  Fig.  10  be  the  parallel 
rays,  each  of  them  will  fall  upon  the  nasal  half  of  the  retina 


SIGHT.  37 

which  it  strikes.  But  the  two  nasal  halves  are  disparate, 
geometrically  symmetrical,  not  geometrically  similar.  The 
star's  image  on  the  left  eye  will  therefore  appear  as  if  lying 
to  the  left  of  0;  its  image  on  the  right  eye  will  appear  to 
the  right  of  this  point.  The  star  will,  in  short,  be  seen 
double — '  homonymously '  double. 

Conversely,  if  the  star  be  looked  at  directly  with  parallel 
axes,  any  near  object  like  0  will  be  seen  double,  because 
its  images  will  affect  the  outer  or  cheek  halves  of  the  two 
retina?,  instead  of  one  outer  and  one  nasal  half.  The  posi- 
tion of  the  images  will  here  be  reversed  from  that  of  the 
previous  case.  The  right  eye's  image  will  now  appear  to 
the  left,  the  left  eye's  to  the  right ;  the  double  images  will 
be  '  heteronymous.' 

The  same  reasoning  and  the  same  result  ought  to  apply 
where  the  object's  place  with  respect  to  the  direction  of  the 
two  optic  axes  is  such  as  to  make  its  images  fall  not  on 
non-similar  retinal  halves,  but  on  non-similar  parts  of  sim- 
ilar halves.  Here,  of  course,  the  positions  seen  will  be  less 
widely  disparate  than  in  the  other  case,  and  the  double 
images  will  appear  to  lie  less  widely  apart. 

Careful  experiments  made  by  many  observers  according 
to  the  so-called  haploscopic  method  confirm  this  law,  and 
show  that  corresponding  points,  of  single  visual  direction, 
exist  upon  the  two  retinas.  For  the  detail  of  these  one 
must  consult  the  special  treatises. 

Vision  of  Solidity. — This  description  of  binocular  vision 
follows  what  is  called  the  theory  of  identical  points.  On 
the  whole  it  formulates  the  facts  correctly.  The  only  odd 
thing  is  that  we  should  be  so  little  troubled  by  the  innu- 
merable double  images  which  objects  nearer  and  farther 
than  the  point  looked  at  must  be  constantly  producing. 
The  answer  to  this  is  that  ive  have  trained  ourselves  to 
habits  of  inattention  in  regard  to  double  images.  So  far 
as  things  interest  us  we  turn  our  fovea?  upon  them,  and  they 
are  necessarily  seen  single;  so  that  if  an  object  impresses 
disparate  points,  that  may  be  taken  as  proof  that  it  is  so 


38  PSYCHOLOGY. 

unimportant  for  us  that  we  needn't  notice  whetner  it 
appears  in  one  place  or  in  two.  By  long  practice  one 
may  acquire  great  expertness  in  detecting  double  images, 
though,  as  some  one  says,  it  is  an  art  which  is  not  to  be 
learned  completely  either  in  one  year  or  in  two. 

Where  the  disparity  of  the  images  is  but  slight  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  see  them  as  if  double.  They  give 
rather  the  perception  of  a  solid  object  being  there.  To  fix 
our  ideas,  take  Fig.  11.    Suppose  we  look  at  the  dots  in  the 


Fio.  n. 

middle  of  the  lines  a  and  h  just  as  we  looked  at  the  spots  in 
Fig.  S.  AVe  shall  get  the  same  result — i.e.,  they  will  coalesce 
in  the  median  line.  But  the  entire  lines  will  not 
coalesce,  for,  owing  to  their  inclination,  their  tops 
fall  on  the  temporal,  and  their  bottoms  on  the 
nasal,  retinal  halves.  What  we  see  will  be  two 
lines  crossed  in  the  middle,  thus  (Fig.  12) : 

The  moment  we  attend  to  the  tops  of  these  lines, 
however,  our  foveas  tend  to  abandon  the  dots  and 
to  move  upwards,  and  in  doing  so,  to  converge    fio.  12. 

somewhat,  following  the  lines, 
which  then  appear  coalescing  at 
the  top  as  in  Fig.  13. 

If  we  think  of  the  bottom, 
the  eyes  descend  and  diverge, 
and  what  we  see  is  Fig.  14. 
Running  our  eyes  up  and 
Fl013-  FlG"'       down    the  lines    makes    them 

converge  and  diverge  just  as  they  would  were  they  running 


SIGHT.  39 

up  and  down  some  single  line  whose  top  was  nearer  to  us 
than  its  bottom.  Now,  if  the  inclination  of  the  lines  be 
moderate,  we  may  not  see  them  double  at  all,  but  single 
throughout  their  length,  when  we  look  at  the  dots.  Under 
these  conditions  their  top  does  look  nearer  than  their  bot- 
tom— in  other  words,  we  see  them  stereoscopically;  and  we 
see  them  so  even  when  our  eyes  are  rigorously  motionless. 
In  other  words,  the  slight  disparity  in  the  bottom-ends 
which  would  draw  the  fovea?  divergently  apart  makes  us 
see  those  ends  farther,  the  slight  disparity  in  the  top  ends 
which  would  draw  them  convergently  together  makes  us  see 
these  ends  nearer,  than  the  point  at  which  we  look.  The 
disparities,  in  short,  affect  our  perception  as  the  actual 
movements  would.* 

The  Perception  of  Distance. — AVhen  we  look  about  us  at 
things,  our  eyes  are  incessantly  moving,  converging,  diverg- 
ing, accommodating,  relaxing,  and  sweeping  over  the  field. 
The  field  appears  extended  in  three  dimensions,  with  some 
of  its  parts  more  distant  and  some  more  near. 

"With  one  eye  our  perception  of  distance  is  very  imperfect,  as 
illustrated  by  the  common  trick  of  holding  a  ring  suspended  by  a 
string  in  front  of  a  person's  face,  and  telling  him  to  shut  one  eye  and 
pass  a  rod  from  one  side  through  the  ring.  If  a  penholder  be  held 
erect  before  one  eye,  while  the  other  is  closed,  and  an  attempt  be  made 
to  touch  it  with  a  finger  moved  across  towards  it,  an  error  will  nearly 
always  be  made.  In  such  cases  we  get  the  only  clue  from  the  amount 
of  effort  needed  to  '  accommodate '  the  eye  to  see  the  object  distinctly. 
When  we  use  both  eyes  our  perception  of  distance  is  much  better ; 
when  we  look  at  an  object  with  two  eyes  the  visual  axes  are  converged 
on  it,  and  the  nearer  the  object  the  greater  the  convergence.  We  have 
a  pretty  accurate  knowledge  of  tbe  degree  of  muscular  effort  required 
to  converge  the  eyes  on  all  tolerably  near  points.     When  objects  are 


*  The  simplest  form  of  stereoscope  is  two  tin  tubes  about  one 
and  one-half  inches  calibre,  dead  black  inside  and  (for  normal  eyes) 
ten  inches  long.  Close  each  end  with  paper  not  too  opaque,  on  which 
an  inch-long  thick  black  line  is  drawn.  Tbe  tubes  can  be  looked 
through,  one  by  each  eye,  and  held  either  parallel  or  with  their  farther 
ends  converging.  When  properly  rotated,  their  images  will  show 
every  variety  of  fusion  and  non-fusion,  and  stereoscopic  effect. 


40  PSYCHOLOGY. 

farther  off,  their  apparent  size,  and  the  modifications  their  retinal 
images  experience  by  aerial  perspective,  come  in  to  help.  The  rela- 
tive distance  of  objects  is  easiest  determined  by  moving  the  eyes;  all 
stationary  objects  then  appear  displaced  in  the  opposite  direction  (as 
for  example  when  \vc  look  out  of  the  window  of  a  railway  car)  and 
those  nearest  most  rapidly;  from  the  different  apparent  rates  of  move 
ment  we  can  tell  which  are  farther  and  which  nearer."* 

Subjectively  considered,  distance  is  an  altogether  peculiar 
content  of  consciousness.  Convergence,  accommodation, 
binocular  disparity,  size,  degree  of  brightness,  parallax, 
etc.,  all  give  us  special  feelings  which  are  signs  of  the 
distance  feeling,  but  not  it.  They  simply  suggest  it  to  us. 
The  best  way  to  get  it  strongly  is  to  go  upon  some  hill-top 
and  invert  one's  head.  The  horizon  then  looks  very  dis- 
tant, and  draws  near  as  the  head  erects  itself  again. 

The  Perception  of  Size.—"  The  dimensions  of  the  retinal 
image  determine  primarily  the  sensations  on  which  conclu- 
sions as  to  size  are  based;  and  the  larger  the  visual  angle 
the  larger  the  retinal  image:  since  the  visual  angle  depends 
on  the  distance  of  an  object,  the  correct  perception  of  size 
depends  largely  upon  a  correct  perception  of  distance  ; 
having  formed  a  judgment,  conscious  or  unconscious,  as 
to  that,  we  conclude  as  to  size  from  the  extent  of  the  reti- 
nal region  affected.  Most  people  have  been  surprised  now 
and  then  to  find  that  what  appeared  a  large  bird  in  the 
clouds  was  only  a  small  insect  close  to  the  eye;  the  large 
apparent  size  being  due  to  the  previous  incorrect  judgment 
as  to  the  distance  of  the  object.  The  jjresence  of  an  object 
of  tolerably  well-known  height,  as  a  man,  also  assists  in 
forming  conceptions  (by  comparison)  as  to  size;  artists 
Cor  this  purpose  frequently  introduce  human  figures  to 
•assist  in  giving  an  idea  of  the  size  of  other  objects  repre- 
sented." f 

Sensations  of  Color. — The  system  of  colors  is  a  very  com- 
plex thing.     If  one  take  any  color,  say  green,  one  can  pass 


*  Martin;  The  TIuman  Body,  p.  530. 
fiiid 


SIGHT.  41 

away  from  it  in  more  than  one  direction,  through  a  series 
of  greens  more  and  more  yellowish,  let  us  say,  towards 
yellow,  or  through  another  series  more  and  more  bluish 
towards  blue.  The  result  would  be  that  if  we  seek  to 
plot  out  on  paper  the  various  distinguishable  tints,  the 
arrangement  cannot  be  that  of  a  line,  but  has  to  cover 
a  surface.  With  the  tints  arranged  on  a  surface  we 
can  pass  from  any  one  of  them  to  any  other  by  various 
lines  of  gradually  changing  intermediaries.  Such  an 
arrangement  is  represented  in  Fig.  15.  It  is  a  merely 
classificatory  diagram  based  on 
degrees  of  difference  simply  felt, 
and  has  no  physical  signifi- 
cance. Black  is  a  color,  but 
does  not  figure  on  the  plane  of 
the  diagram.  We  cannot  place 
it  anywhere  alongside  of  the 
other  colors  because  we  need 
both  to  represent  the  straight 
gradation  from  untinted  white 
to  black,  and    that  from   each  Fl°-  15- 

pure  color  towards  black  as  well  as  towards  white.  The 
best  way  is  to  put  black  into  the  third  dimension,  beneath 
the  paper,  e.g.,  as  is  shown  perspectively  in  Fig.  16,  then 
all  the  transitions  can  be  schematically  shown.  One  can 
pass  straight  from  black  to  white,  or  one  can  pass  round  by 
way  of  olive,  green,  and  pale  green;  or  one  can  change 
from  dark  blue  to  yellow  through  green,  or  by  way  of  sky- 
blue,  white  and  straw  color;  etc.,  etc.  In  any  case  the 
changes  are  continuous;  and  the  color  system  thus  forms 
what  Wundt  calls  a  tri-dimensional  continuum. 

Color-mixture.  —  Physiologically  considered,  the  colors 
have  this  peculiarity,  that  many  pairs  of  them,  when  they 
impress  the  retina  together,  produce  the  sensation  of  white. 
The  colors  which  do  this  are  called  complementaries.  Such 
are  spectral  red  and  green-blue,  spectral  yellow  and  indigo- 
blue.    Green  and  purple,  again,  are  complementaries.    Ail 


42 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


the  spectra]  colors  added  together  also  make  white  light, 
such  as  we  daily  experience  in  the  sunshine.  Further- 
more, both  homogeneous  ether- 
waves  and  heterogeneous  ones 
may  make  us  feel  the  same 
color,  when  they  tall  on  our 
retina.  Thus  yellow,  which 
is  ;i  simple  spectral  color,  is 
also  felt  when  green  light  is 
added  to  red;  blue  is  felt  when 
violet  and  green  lights  are 
mixed.  Purple,  which  is  not 
a  spectral  color  at  all,  results 
when  the  waves  either  of  red 
and  of  violet,  or  those  of  blue 
and  of  orange  are  superposed.* 
From  all  this  it  follows 
that  there  is  no  particular 
congruence  between  our  sys- 
tem of  color-sensations  and 
the  physical  stimuli  which  ex- 
cite them.  Each  color-feeling 
is  a  'specific  energy"  (p.  11) 
which  many  different  physical 
causes  may  arouse.  Ilclm- 
holtz,  Hering,  and  others  have 
sought  to  simplify  the  tangle 
of  the  facts,  by  physiologi- 
cal hypotheses  which,  differ- 
ing much  in  detail,  agree  in 
principle,  since  they  all  postulate  a  limited  number  of 
elementary  retinal  processes  to  which,  when  excited  singly, 

*The  ordinary  mixing  of  pigments  is  not  an  addition,  but  rather,  as 
Helmholtz  has  shown,  a  subtraction,  of  lights.  To  add  one  color  to 
another  we  must  either  by  appropriate  glasses  throw  differently  col- 
ored beams  upon  the  same  reflecting  surface;  or  we  must  let  the  eve 
look  at  one  color  through  an  inclined  plate  of  glass  beneath  which  it 
lies,  whilst  the  upper  surface  of  the  glass  reflects  into  the  *ame  eye 


Black 
Fig.  16  (after  Ziehen). 


SIGHT.  43 

certain  'fundamental'  colors  severally  correspond.  When 
excited  in  combination,  as  they  may  be  by  the  most  various 
physical  stimuli,  other  colors,  called  'secondary,'  are  felt. 
The  secondary  color-sensations  are  often  spoken  of  as  if 
they  were  compounded  of  the  primary  sensations.  This  is 
a  great  mistake.  The  sensations  as  such  are  not  com- 
pounded— yellow,  for  example,  a  secondary  on  Helmholtz's 
theory,  is  as  unique  a  quality  of  feeling  as  the  primaries 
red  and  green,  which  are  said  to  '  compose '  it.  What  are 
compounded  are  merely  the  elementary  retinal  processes. 
These,  according  to  their  combination,  produce  diverse 
results  on  the  brain,  and  thence  the  secondary  colors  result 
immediately  in  consciousness.  The  'color-theories'  are 
thus  physiological,  not  psychological,  hypotheses,  and  for 
more  information  concerning  them  the  reader  must  con- 
sult the  physiological  books. 

The  Duration  of  Luminous  Sensations. — "This  is  greater 
than  that  of  the  stimulus,  a  fact  taken  advantage  of  in 
making  fireworks :  an  ascending  rocket  produces  the  sen- 
sation of  a  trail  of  light  extending  far  behind  the  position 
of  the  bright  part  of  the  rocket  itself  at  the  moment, 
because  the  sensation  aroused  by  it  in  a  lower  part  of  its 
course  still  persists.  So,  shooting  stars  appear  to  have 
luminous  tails  behind  them.  By  rotating  rapidly  before 
the  eye  a  disk  with  alternate  white  and  black  sectors  we 
get  for  each  point  of  the  retina  alternate  stimulation  (due 
to  the  passage  of  white  sector)  and  rest  (when  a  black 
sector  is  passing).  If  the  rotation  be  rapid  enough  the 
sensation  aroused  is  that  of  a  uniform  gray,  such  as  would 
be  produced  if  the  white  and  black  were  mixed  and  spread 
evenly  over  the  disk.-     In  each  revolution  the  eye  gets  as 


another  color  placed  alongside — the  two  lights  then  mix  on  the  retina; 
or,  finally,  we  must  let  the  differently  colored  lights  fall  in  succession 
upon  the  retina,  so  fast  that  the  second  is  there  hefore  the  impres- 
sion made  by  the  first  has  died  away.  This  is  best  done  by  looking 
at  a  rapidly  rotating  disk  whose  sectors  are  of  the  several  colors  to  be 
mixed. 


44  PSYCHOLOGY. 

much  light  as  if  that  were  the  case,  and  is  unable  to  dis 
tinguish  that  this  light  is  made  up  of  separate  portions 
reaching  it  at  intervals:  the  stimulation  due  to  each  lasts 
until  the  next  begins,  and  so  all  are  fused  together.  If 
one  turns  out  suddenly  the  gas  in  a  room  containing  no 
other  light,  the  image  of  the  flame  persists  a  short  time 
after  the  flame  itself  is  extinguished."*  If  we  open  our 
eyes  instantaneously  upon  a  scene,  and  then  shroud  them 
in  complete  darkness,  it  will  be  as  if  we  saw  the  scene  in 
ghostly  light  through  the  dark  screen.  We  can  read  off 
details  in  it  which  were  unnoticed  whilst  the  eyes  were 
open.  This  is  the  primary  positive  after-image,  so-called. 
According  to  Helmholtz,  one  third  of  a  second  is  the  most 
favorable  length  of  exposure  to  the  light  for  producing  it. 
Negative  after-images  are  due  to  more  complex  condi- 
tions, in  which  fatigue  of  the  retina  is  usually  supposed  to 
play  the  chief  part. 

"  The  nervous  visual  apparatus  is  easily  fatigued.  Usually  we  do 
not  observe  this  because  its  restoration  is  also  rapid,  and  in  ordinary 
life  our  eyes,  when  open,  are  never  at  rest ;  we  move  them  to  and 
fro,  so  that  parts  of  the  retina  receive  light  alternately  from  brighter 
and  darker  objects,  and  are  alternately  excited  and  rested.  How  con- 
stant and  habitual  the  movement  of  the  eyes  is  can  be  readily  observed 
by  trying  to  'fix'  for  a  short  time  a  small  spot  without  deviating  the 
glance  ;  to  do  so  for  even  a  few  seconds  is  impossible  without  prac- 
tice. If  any  small  object  is  steadily  'fixed'  for  twenty  or  thirty 
seconds,  it  will  be  found  that  the  whole  field  of  vision  becomes  gray- 
ish and  obscure,  because  the  parts  of  the  retina  receiving  most  light 
get  fatigued,  and  arouse  no  more  sensation  than  those  less  fatigued 
and  stimulated  by  light  from  less  illuminated  objects.  Or  look 
steadily  at  a  black  object,  say  a  blot  on  a  white  page,  for  twenty 
seconds,  and  then  turn  the  eye  on  a  white  wall  ;  the  latter  will  seem 
dark  gray,  with  a  white  patch  on  it;  an  effect  due  to  the  greater 
excitability  of  the  retinal  parts  previously  rested  by  the  black,  when 
compared  with  the  sensation  aroused  elsewhere  by  light  from  the 
white  wall  acting  on  the  previously  stimulated  parts  of  the  visual 
surface.  All  persons  will  recall  many  instances  of  such  phenomena, 
which   are   especially  noticeable   soon   after   rising  in  the  morning. 

*  Martin :  op.  cit. 


SIGHT.  45 

Similar  things  may  be  noticed  with  colors  ;  after  looking  at  a  red 
patch  the  eye  turned  on  a  white  wall  sees  a  blue-green  patch  ;  the 
elements  causing  red  sensations  having  been  fatigued,  the  white 
mixed  light  from  the  wall  now  excites  on  that  region  of  the  retina 
only  the  other  primary  color  sensations.  The  blending  of  colors  so  as 
to  secure  their  greatest  effect  depends  on  this  fact ;  red  and  green  go 
well  together  because  each  rests  the  parts  of  the  visual  apparatus 
most  excited  by  the  other,  and  so  each  appears  bright  and  vivid  as  the 
eye  wanders  to  and  fro  ;  while  red  and  orange  together,  each  exciting 
and  exhausting  mainly  the  same  visual  elements,  render  dull,  or  in 
popular  phrase  'kill,'  one  another. 

"If  we  fix  steadily  for  thirty  seconds  a  point  between  two  white 
squares  about  4  mm.  (£  inch)  apart  on  a  large  black  sheet,  and  then 
close  and  cover  our  eyes,  we  get  a  negative  after-image  in  which  are 
seen  two  dark  squares  on  a  brighter  surface  ;  this  surface  is  brighter 
close  around  the  negative  after-image  of  each  square,  and  brightest  of 
all  between  them.  This  luminous  boundary  is  called  the  corona,  and 
is  explained  usually  as  an  effect  of  simultaneous  contrast ;  the  dark 
after-image  of  the  square  it  is  said  makes  us  mentally  err  in  judg- 
ment, and  think  the  clear  surface  close  to  it  brighter  than  elsewhere  ; 
and  it  is  brightest  between  the  two  dark  squares,  just  as  a  middle- 
sized  man  between  two  tall  ones  looks  shorter  than  if  alongside  one 
only.  If,  however,  the  after-image  be  watched,  it  will  often  be 
noticed  not  only  that  the  light  band  between  the  squares  is  intensely 
white,  much  more  so  than  the  normal  idio-retinal  light  [see  below], 
but,  as  the  image  fades  away,  often  the  two  dark  after-images  of 
the  squares  disappear  entirely  with  all  of  the  corona,  except  that 
part  between  them  which  is  still  seen  as  a  bright  band  on  a  uniform 
grayish  field.  Here  there  is  no  contrast  to  produce  the  error  of  judg- 
ment; and  from  this  and  other  experiments  Hering  concludes  that 
light  acting  on  one  part  of  the  retina  produces  inverse  changes  in  all 
the  rest,  and  that  this  plays  an  important  part  in  producing  the 
phenomena  of  contrasts.  Similar  phenomena  may  be  observed  with 
colored  objects;  in  their  negative  after-images  each  tint  is  represented 
by  its  complementary,  as  black  is  by  white  in  colorless  vision."* 

This  is  one  of  the  facts  referred  to  on  p.  27  which  have 
made  Hering  reject  the  psychological  explanation  of  simul- 
taneous contrast. 

The  Intensity  of  Luminous  Objects. — Black  is  an  optical 
sensation.     We  have  no  black  except  in  the  field  of  view  ; 

*  Martin,  pp.  525-8. 


46  PSYCHOLOGY. 

we  do  not,  for  instance,  see  black  out  of  our  stomach  or  out 
of  the  palm  of  our  hand.  Pure  black  is,  however,  only  an 
'abstracl  idea/  for  the  retina  itself  (even  in  complete  objec- 
tive darkness)  seems  to  be  always  the  seat  of  internal 
changes  which  give  some  luminous  sensation.  This  is  what 
is  meant  by  the  '  idio-retinal  light,'  spoken  of  a  few  lines 
back.  It  plays  its  part  in  the  determination  of  all  after- 
images with  closed  eyes.  Any  objective  luminous  stimulus, 
to  be  perceived,  must  be  strong  enough  to  give  a  sensible 
increment  of  sensation  over  and  above  the  idio-retinal 
light.  As  the  objective  stimulus  increases  the  perception 
is  of  an  intenser  luminosity;  but  the  perception  changes, 
as  we  saw  on  p.  IS,  more  slowly  than  the  stimulus.  The 
latest  numerical  determinations,  by  Konig  and  Brodhun, 
were  applied  to  six  different  colors  and  ran  from  an  in- 
tensity arbitrarily  called  1  to  one  which  was  100,000  times 
as  great.  From  intensity  2000  to  20,000  Weber's  law  held 
good;  below  and  above  this  range  discriminative  sensibility 
declined. '  The  relative  increment  discriminated  here  was 
the  same  for  all  colors  of  light,  and  lay  (according  to  the 
tables)  between  1  and  2  per  cent  of  the  stimulus.  Previous 
observers  have  got  different  results. 

A  certain  amount  of  luminous  intensity  must  exist  in  an 
object  for  its  color  to  be  discriminated  at  all.  "In  the 
dark  all  cats  are  gray."  But  the  colors  rapidly  become 
distincter  as  the  light  increases,  first  the  blues  and  last  the 
reds  and  yellows,  up  to  a  certain  point  of  intensity,  when 
they  grow  indistinct  again  through  the  fact  that  each  takes 
a  turn  towards  white.  At  the  highest  bearable  intensity  of 
the  light  all  colors  are  lost  in  the  blinding  white  dazzle. 
This  again  is  usually  spoken  of  as  a  'mixing'  of  the  sensa- 
tion white  with  the  original  color-sensation.  It  is  no  mix- 
ing of  two  sensations,  but  the  replacement  of  one  sensation 
by  another,  in  consequence  of  a  changed  neural  process. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


HEARING.* 


The  Ear. — "  The  auditory  organ  in  man  consists  of  three 
portions,  known  respectively  as  the  external  ear,  the 
middle  ear  or  tympanum,  and  the  internal  ear  or  laby- 


Fig.  17.— Semidiagrammatic  section  through  the  right  ear  (Czermakt.  it/, 
concha;  G,  external  auditory  meatus;  T,  tympanic  membrane;  P,  tympanic 
cavity;  o,  oval  foramen;  r,  round  foramen;  R,  pharyngeal  opening  of  Eusta- 
chian tube:  T".  vestibule;  B,  a  semicircular  canal;  S,  the  cochlea;  Vt,  scala 
vestibuli;  Pt,  scala  tympani;  .4.  auditory  nerve. 

rintli ;  the  latter  contains  the  end-organs  of  the  auditory 
nerve.  The  external  ear  consists  of  the  expansion  seen  on 
the  exterior  of  the  head,  called  the  concha,  M,  Fig.  17, 

*  In  teaching  the  anatomy  of  the  ear,  great  assistance  will  be 
yielded  by  the  admirable  model  made  by  Dr.  Anzoux,  56  Rue  de 
Vaugirard,  Paris,  described  in  the  catalogue  of  the  firm  as  "No.  21 
— Oreille,  temporal  de  60  cm.,  nouvelle  edition,"  etc. 


48 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


and  a  passage  leading  in  from  it,  the  external  auditory 
meatus,  0.  This  passage  is  closed  at  its  inner  end  by  the 
tympanic  or  drum  membrane,  T.  It  is  lined  by  skin, 
through  which  numerous  small  glands,  secreting  the  wax 
of  the  ear,  open. 

"  The  Tympanum  (P,  Fig.  17)  is  an  irregular  cavity  in 
the  temporal  bone,  closed  externally  by  the  drum  mem- 
brane. From  its  inner  side  the  Eustachian  tube  (N)  pro- 
ceeds and  opens  into  the  pharynx.  The  inner  wall  of  the 
tympanum  is  bony  except  for  two  small  apertures,  the  oval 
and  round  foramens,  o  and  r,  which  lead  into  the  laby- 
rinth. During  life  the  round  aperture  is  closed  by  the 
lining  mucous  membrane,  and  the  oval  by  the  stirrup- 
bones.  The  tympanic  membrane  T,  stretched  across  the 
outer  side  of  the  tympanum,  forms  a  shallow  funnel  with 
its  concavity  outwards.  It  is  pressed  by  the  external  air 
on  its  exterior,  and  by  air  entering  the  tympanic  cavity 
through  the  Eustachian  tube  on  its  inner  side.  If  the 
tympanum  were  closed  these  pressures  would  not  be  always 
equal  when  barometric  pressure  varied,  and  the  membrane 
would  be  bulged  in  or  out  according  as  the  external  or  in- 
ternal pressure  on  it  were 
the  greater.  On  the  other 
hand,  were  the  Eustachian 
tube  always  open  the  sounds 
of  our  own  voices  would 
be  loud  and  disconcerting, 
so  it  is  usually  closed;  but 
every  time  we  swallow 
it  is  opened,  and  thus  the 
air-pressure  in  the  cavity 
is  kept  equal  to  that  in  the 
Mm  external    auditory   meatus. 

Fio.  18-ji/c;).  Mc  mi  and  Mm  stand  for  On  making  a  balloon  ascent 

different  parts  of  the  malleus;  Jc,  Jo,  ,  ° 

Jl,  Jpl,  for  diffeient  parts  of  the  incus,   or     ffoinff     rapidly     down      a 

S  is  the  stapes.  ,        °       .  ,  ln  , 

deep  mine,  the  sudden  and 
great  change  of  aerial  pressure  outside  frequently  causes 


HEARING  49 

painful  tension  of  the  drum-membrane,  which  may  be 
greatly  alleviated,  by  frequent  swallowing. 

The  Auditory  Ossicles. — Three  small  bones  lie  in  the 
tympanum  forming  a  chain  from  the  drum-membrane  to 
the  oval  foramen.  The  external  bone  is  the  malleus  or 
hammer  ;  the  middle  one,  the  incus  or  anvil ;  and  the  in- 
ternal one,  the  stapes  or  stirrup.  They  are  represented  in 
Fig.  18.* 

Accommodation  is  provided  for  in  the  ear  as  well  as  in 
the  eye.  One  muscle  an  inch  long,  the  tensor  tympani, 
arises  in  the  petrous  portion  of  the  temporal  bone  (running 
in  a  canal  parallel  to  the  Eustachian  tube)  and  is  inserted 
into  the  malleus  below  its  head.  When  it  contracts,  it 
makes  the  membrane  of  the  tympanum  more  tense. 
Another  smaller  muscle,  the  stapedius,  goes  to  the  head  of 
the  stirrup-bone.  These  muscles  are  by  many  persons  felt 
distinctly  contracting  when  certain  notes  are  heard,  and 
some  can  make  them  contract  at  will.  In  spite  of  this, 
uncertainty  still  reigns  as  to  their  exact  use  in  hearing, 
though  it  is  highly  probable  that  they  give  to  the  mem- 
branes which  they  influence  the  degree  of  tension  best 
suited  to  take  up  whatever  rates  of  vibration  may  fall 
upon  them  at  the  time.  In  listening,  the  head  and  ears  in 
lower  animals,  and  the  head  alone  in  man,  are  turned  so  as 
best  to  receive  the  sound.  This  also  is  a  part  of  the  reac- 
tion called  '  adaptation '  of  the  organ  (see  the  chapter  on 
Attention). 

The  Internal  Ear. — "  The  labyrinth  consists  primarily  of 
chambers  and  tubes  hollowed  out  in  the  temporal  bone  and 
inclosed  by  it  on  all  sides,  except  for  the  oval  and  round 
foramens  on  its  exterior,  and  certain  apertures  for  blood- 
vessels and  the  auditory  nerve;  during  life  all  these  are 
closed  water-tight  in  one  way  or  another.  Lying  in  the 
bony  labyrinth  thus  constituted  are  membranous  parts,  of 
the  same  general  form  but  smaller,  so  that  between  the  two 

*  This  description  is  abridged  from  Martin's  '  Human  Body'. 


50 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


a  space  is  left;  this  is  filled  with  a  watery  fluid,  called  the 
perilymph  ;  and  the  membranous  internal  ear  is  tilled  by 
a  similar  liquid,  the  endolymph. 


Fig.  19.— Casts  of  the  bony  labyrinth.  A,  left  labyrinth  seen  from  the  outei 
side:  B,  right  labyrinth  from  the  inner  side;  <  .  lefi  labyrinth  from  above:  Co, 
cochlea;  1'.  vestibule;  Fc,  round  foramen;  Fv,  oval  foramen;  ft,  horizontal 
semicircular  canal;  ha,  its  ampulla;  van,  ampulla  of  anterior  vertical  semi- 
circular canal ;  injo,  ampulla  of  posterior  vertical  semicircular  canal ;  vc,  con- 
joined portion  of  the  two  vertical  canals. 

The  Bony  Labyrinth. — "The  bony  labyrinth  is  described 
in  three  portions,  the  vestibule,  the  semicircular  canals, 
and  the  cochlea  ;  casts  of  its  interior  arc  represented  from 
different  aspects  in  Fig.  19.  The  vestibule  is  the  central 
part  and  has  on  its  exterior  the  oval  foramen  (Fv)  into 
which  the  base  of  the  stirrup-bone  fits.  Behind  the  vesti- 
bule are  three  bony  semicircular  canals,  communicating 
with  the  back  of  the  vestibule  at  each  end,  and  dilated  near 
one  end  to  form  an  ampulla.  The  bony  cochlea  is  a  tube 
coiled  on  itself  somewhat  like  a  snail's  shell,  and  lying  in 
front  of  the  vestibule. 

The  Membranous  Labyrinth. — "The  membranous  vesti- 
bule, lying  in  the  bony,  consists  of  two  sacs  communicating 
by  a  narrow  aperture.  The  posterior  is  called  the  ittri- 
cuius,  and  into  it,  the  membranous  semicircular  canals 
open.  The  anterior,  called  the  sacculus,  communicates  by 
a  tube  with  the  membranous  cochlea.  The  membranous 
semicircular  canals  much  resemble  the  bony,  and  each  has 


HEARING. 


."51 


an  ampulla;  in  the  ampulla  one  side  of  the  membranous 
tube  is  closely  adherent 
to  its  bony  protector;  at 
this  point  nerves  enter 
the  former.  The  rela- 
tions of  the  membranous 
to  the  bony  cochlea  are 
more  complicated.  A 
section  through  this  part 
of  the  auditory  appara- 
tus (Fig.  20)  shows  that 
its  osseous  portion  con- 


FlG 


A  section  through  the  cochlea  in 
the  line  of  its  axis. 


sists  of  a  tube  wound  two 
and  a  half  times  round  a  central  bony  axis,  the  modiolus. 
From  the  axis  a  shelf,  the  lamina  spiralis,  projects  and 
partially  subdivides  the  tube,  extending  farthest  across  in 
its  lower  coils.  Attached  to  the  outer  edge  of  this  bony 
plate  is  the  membranous  cochlea  (scala  media),  a  tube  tri- 
angular in  cross-section  and  attached  by  its  base  to  the 
outer  side  of  the  bony  cochlear  spiral.  The  spiral  lamina 
and  the  membranous  cochlea  thus  subdivide  the  cavity  of 
the  bony  tube  (Fig.  21)  into  an  upper  portion,  the  scala 


Fig.  21.— Section  of  one  coil  of  the  cochlea,  magnified.  SV,  scala  vestibitli ; 
R.  membrane  of  Reissner;  CC,  membranous  cochlea  (scala  media)'.  Us,  limbits 
lamince  spiralis;  t,  tectorial  membrane;  ST,  scala  tympani  ;  Iso,  spiral 
lamina;  Co,  rods  of  Corti;  b,  basilar  membrane. 

vestibuli,  SV,  and  a  lower,  the  scala  tympani,  ST.     Be- 
tween  these   lie   the  lamina  spiralis   (Iso)  and  the  mem- 


52 


PSYCHOLOGY 


branoKS  cochlea  (CC),  the  latter  being  bounded  above  by 
the  membrane  of  Reissuer  (E)  and  below  by  the  basilar 
membrane  (b)."  * 

The  membranous  cochlea  does  not  extend  to  the  tip  of 
the  bony  cochlea;  above  its  apex  the  scala  vestibuli  and 
8cala  tympani  communicate.      Both  are  rilled  with  peri- 
lymph, so  that  when  the  stapes  is  pushed  into  the  oval 
foramen,  o,  in  Fig.  17,  by  the  impact  of  an  air-wave  on 
the  tympanic  membrane,  a  wave  of  perilymph  runs  up  the 
scala  vestibuli  to  the  top,  where  it  turns  into  the  scala  tym- 
pani. down  whose  whorls  it  runs  and  pushes  out  the  round 
foramen  r,  ruffling  probably  the  membrane  of  Reissner  and 
the  basilar  membrane  on  its  way  up  and  down. 

The  Terminal  Organs.—"  The  membranous  cochlea  con- 
tains certain  solid  structures  seated  on  the  basilar  mem- 
brane and  forming  the  organ  of  Corti.  This  contains  the 
end-organs  of  the  cochlear  nerves.     Lining  the  sulcus 

A  B 


300 


Fig.  22.— The  rods  of  Corti.  A,  a  pair  of  rods  separated  from  the  rest;  B,  a 
bit,  of  the  basilar  membrane  with  several  rods  on  it,  showing  how  they  cover 
in  the  tunnel,  of  Corti  ;  i,  inner,  and  e,  outer  rods;  b,  basilar  membrane;  r, 
reticular  membrane. 

spiralis,  a  groove  in  the  edge  of  the  bony  lamina  spiralis, 
are  cuboidal  cells;  on  the  inner  margin  of  the  basilar  mem- 
brane they  become  columnar,  and  then  are  succeeded  by  a 
rmv  which  bear  on  their  upper  ends  a  set  of  short  stiff 
hairs,  and  constitute  the  inner  hair-cells,  which  are  fixed 
below  by  a  narrow  apex  to  the  basilar  membrane;  nerve- 
fibres  enter  them.      To  the  inner  hair-cells  succeed  the 


*  Martin  :  op.  cit. 


HEARING. 


53 


rods  of  Corti  {Co,  Fig.  21),  which  are  represented  highly 
magnified  in  Fig.  22.  These  rods  are  stiff  and  arranged 
side  by  side  in  two  rows,  leaned  against  one  another  by 
their  upper  ends  so  as  to  cover  in  a  tunnel ;  they  are  known 
respectively  as  the  inner  and  outer  rods,  the  former  being 
nearer  the  lamina  spiralis.  The  inner  rods  are  more 
numerous  than  the  outer,  the  numbers  being  about  6000 
and  4500  respectively.  Attached  to  the  external  sides  of 
the  heads  of  the  outer  rods  is  the  reticular  membrane  (r. 
Fig.  22),  which  is  stiff  and  perforated  by  holes.  Exter- 
nal to  the  outer  rods  come  four  rows  of  outer  hair-cells, 
connected  like  the  inner  row  with 
nerve-fibres  ;  their  bristles  project 
into  the  holes  of  the  reticular  mem- 
brane. Beyond  the  outer  hair-cells 
is  ordinary  columnar  epithelium, 
which  passes  gradually  into  cu- 
boidal  cells  lining  most  of  tli3  mem- 
branous cochlea.  From  the  upper 
lip  of  the  sulcus  spiralis  projects 
the  tectorial  membrane  (t,  Fig.  21) 
which  extends  over  the  rods  of 
Corti  and  the  hair-cells  "* 

The  hair-cells  would  thus  seem  to 
be  the  terminal  organs  for  '  picking  Fm.  23. -Sensory  epithelium 

from  ampulla  or  semicircu- 
lar canal,  and  saccule.  At  n 
a  nerve-fibre  pierces  the  wali, 
and  after  branching  enters 
the  two  hair-cells,  c.  At  h  a 
'columnar  cell '  with  a  long 
hair  is  shown,  the  nerve-fibre 
being  broken  away  from  its 
base.  The  slender  cells  at 
/  seem  unconnected  witt 
cerves. 


up'  the  vibrations  which  the  air- 
waves communicate  through  all  the 
intervening  apparatus,  solid  and 
liquid,  to  the  basilar  membrane. 
Analogous  hair-ceils  receive  the 
terminal  nerve-filaments  in  the 
walls  of  the  saccule,  utricle,  and  ampullae  (see  Fig.  23). 

The  Various  dualities  of  Sound.— Physically,  sounds  con- 
sist of  vibrations,  and  these  are,  generally  speaking,  aerial 
leaves.     When  the  waves  are  non-periodic  the  result  is  a 


*  Martin  :  op.  eit 


54  PSYCHOLOG  7. 

noise;  when  periodic  it  is  what  is  nowadays  called  a  tone, 
or  note.  The  loudness  of  a  sound  depends  on  the  force  of  the 
waves.  When  they  recur  periodically  a  peculiar  quality 
called  pitch  is  the  effect  of  their  frequency.  In  addition  to 
loudness  and  pitch  tones  have  each  their  voice  or  timbre, 
which  may  differ  widely  in  different  .instruments  giving 
equally  loud  tones  of  the  same  pitch.  This  voice  depends 
on  the  form  of  the  aerial  wave. 

Pitch. — A  single  puff  of  air,  set  in  motion  by  no  matter 
what  cause,  will  give  a  sensation  of  sound,  hut  it  takes  at 
least  four  or  five  puffs,  or  more,  to  convey  a  sensation  'of 
pitch.  The  pitch  of  the  note  c,  for  instance,  is  due  to  132 
vibrations  a  second,  that  of  its  octave  c'  is  produced  by  twice 
as  many,  or  264  vibrations;  but  in  neither  case  is  it  ne- 
cessary for  the  vibrations  to  go  on  during  a  full  second 
for  the  pitch  to  be  discerned.  "  Sound  vibrations  may 
be  too  rapid  or  too  slow  in  succession  to  produce  sonorous 
sensations,  just  as  the  ultra-violet  and  ultra-red  rays  of 
the  solar  spectrum  fail  to  excite  the  retina.  The  highest- 
pitched  audible  note  answers  to  about  38,010  vibrations  in 
a  second,  but  it  differs  in  individuals;  many  jiersons  cannot 
hear  the  cry  of  a  bat  nor  the  chirp  of  a  cricket,  which  lie 
near  this  upper  audible  limit.  On  the  other  hand,  sounds 
of  vibrational  rate  about  40  per  second  are  not  well  heard, 
and  a  little  below  this  they  produce  rather  a  '  hum '  than  a 
true  tone-sensation,  and  are  only  used  along  with  notes  of 
higher  octaves  to  which  they  give  a  character  of  greater 
depth.'-'  * 

The  entire  system  of  pitches  forms  a  continuum  of  one 
dimension;  that  is  to  say,  you  can  pass  from  one  pitch  to 
another  only  by  one  set  of  intermediaries,  instead  of  by 
more  than  one,  as  in  the  case  of  colors.  (See  p.  41.)  The 
whole  series  of  pitches  w  embraced  in  and  between  the 
terms  of  what  is  called  the  musical  scale.  The  adoption  of 
certain  arbitrary  points  in  this  scale  as  'notes'  has  an  ex- 

*  Martin  :  op.  cit. 


HEARING.  55 

planatiou  partly  historic  and  partly  {esthetic,  but  too  com- 
plex for  exposition  here. 

The  'timbre'  of  a  note  is  due  to  its  wave-form.  Waves 
are  either  simple  ('pendular')  or  compound.  Thus  if  a 
tuning-fork  (which  gives  waves  nearly  simple)  vibrate  132 
times  a  second,  we  shall  hear  the  note  c.  If  simultaneously 
a  fork  of  264  vibrations  be  struck,  giving  the  next  higher 
octave,  c' ',  the  aerial  movement  at  any  time  will  be  the  alge- 
braic sum  of  the  movements  due  to  both  forks;  whenever 
both  drive  the  air  one  way  they  reinforce  one  another; 
when  on  the  contrary  the  recoil  of  one  fork  coincides  with 
the  forward  stroke  of  another,  they  detract  from  each 
other's  effect.  The  result  is  a  movement  which  is  still 
periodic,  repeating  itself  at  equal  intervals  of  time,  but  no 
longer  pendular,  since  it  is  not  alike  on  the  ascending  and 
descending  limbs  of  the  curves.*  We  thus  get  at  the  fact 
that  non-pendular  vibrations  may  be  produced  by  the  fusion 
of  pendular,  or,  in  technical  phrase,  by  their  composition. 

Suppose  several  musical  instruments,  as  those  of  an  or- 
chestra, to  he  sounded  together.  Each  produces  its  own 
effect  on  the  air-particles,  whose  movements,  being  an 
algebraical  sum,  must  at  any  given  instant  be  very  com- 
plex; yet  the  ear  can  pick  out  at  will  and  follow  the  tones 
of  any  one  instrument.  Now  in  most  musical  instruments 
it  is  susceptible  of  physical  proof  that  with  every  single 
note  that  is  sounded  many  upper  octaves  and  other  '  har- 
monics'  sound  simultaneously  in  fainter  form.  On  the 
relative  strength  of  this  or  that  one  or  more  of  these  Helm- 
holtz  has  shown  that  the  instrument's  peculiar  voice  de- 
pends. The  several  vowel-sounds  in  the  human  voice  also 
depend  on  the  predominance  of  diverse  upper  harmonics 
accompanying  the  note  on  which  the  vowel  is  sung.  When 
the  two  tuning-forks  of  the  last  paragraph  are  sounded  to- 
gether the  new  form  of  vibration  has  the  same  period  as 
the  lower-pitched  fork;  yet  the  ear  can  clearly  distinguish 
the  resultant  sound  from  that  of  the  lower  fork  alone,  as  a 
note  of  the  same  pitch  but  of  different  timbre;  and  within 


66  psrcnoLoar. 

the  compound  sound  (lie  two  components  can  by  a  trained 
ear  be  severally  heard.  Now  how  can  one  resultant  wave- 
form make  ns  hear  so  many  sounds  at  once  ? 

The  analysis  of  compound  wave-forms  is  supposed  (after 
ITelmholtz)  to  be  effected  through  the  different  rates  of 
sympathetic  resonance  of  the  different  parts  of  the  mem- 
branous cochlea.  Tbc  basilar  membrane  is  some  twelve 
times  broader  at  the  apex  of  the  cochlea  than  at  the  base 
where  it  begins,  and  is  largely  composed  of  radiating  fibres 
which  may  be  likened  to  stretched  strings.  Now  the  phy- 
sical principle  of  sympathetic  resonance  says  that  when 
stretched  strings  are  near  a  source  of  vibration  those  whose 
own  rate  agrees  with  that  of  the  source  also  vibrate,  the 
others  remaining  at  rest.  On  this  principle,  waves  of  peri- 
lymph running  down  the  scala  tympani  at  a  certain  rate  of 
frequency  ought  to  set  certain  particular  fibres  of  the  basilar 
membrane  vibrating,  and  ought  to  leave  others  unaffected. 
If  then  each  vibrating  fibre  stimulated  the  hair-cell  above 
it,  and  no  others,  and  each  such  hair-cell,  sending  a  current 
to  the  auditory  brain-centre,  awakened  therein  a  specific 
process  to  which  the  sensation  of  one  particular  pitch  was 
correlated,  the  physiological  condition  of  our  several  pitch- 
sensations  would  be  explained.  Suppose  now  a  chord  to 
be  struck  in  which  perhaps  twenty  different  physical  rates 
of  vibration  are  found :  at  least  twenty  different  hair-cells 
or  end-organs  will  receive  the  jar;  and  if  the  power  of 
mental  discrimination  be  at  its  maximum,  twenty  different 
'objects'  of  hearing,  in  the  shape  of  as  many  distinct 
pitches  of  sound,  may  appear  before  the  mind. 

The  rods  of  Corti  are  supposed  to  be  dampers  of  the 
fibres  of  the  basilar  membrane,  just  as  the  malleus,  incus, 
and  stapes  are  dampers  of  the  tympanic  membrane,  as  well 
as  transmitters  of  its  oscillations  to  the  inner  ear.  There 
must  be,  in  fact,  an  instantaneous  damping  of  the  physio- 
logical vibrations,  for  there  are  no  such  positive  after-images, 
and  no  such  blendings  of  rapidly  successive  tones,  as  the 
retina  shows  us  in  the  case  of  light.     Helmholtz's  theory  of 


HEARING.  57 

the  analysis  of  sounds  is  plausible  and  ingenious.  One 
objection  to  it  is  that  the  keyboard  of  the  cochlea  does  not 
seem  extensive  enough  for  the  number  of  distinct  reso- 
nances required.  We  can  discriminate  many  more  degrees 
of  pitch  than  the  20,000  hair-cells,  more  or  less,  will  allow 
for. 

The  so-called  Fusion  of  Sensations  in  Hearing. — A  very 
common  way  of  explaining  the  fact  that  waves  which  singly 
give  no  feeling  of  pitch  give  one  when  recurrent,  is  to  say 
that  their  several  sensations  fuse  into  a  compound  sensation. 
A  preferable  explanation  is  that  which  follows  the  analogy 
of  muscular  contraction.  If  electric  shocks  are  sent  into  a 
frog's  sciatic  nerve  at  slow  intervals,  the  muscle  which  the 
nerve  supplies  will  give  a  series  of  distinct  twitches,  one  for 
each  shock.  But  if  they  follow  each  other  at  the  rate  of  as 
many  as  thirty  a  second,  no  distinct  twitches  are  observed, 
but  a  steady  state  of  contraction  instead.  This  steady  con- 
traction is  known  as  tetanus.  The  experiment  proves  that 
there  is  a  physiological  cumulation  or  overlapping  of  pro- 
cesses in  the  muscular  tissue.  It  takes  a  twentieth  of  a 
second  or  more  for  the  latter  to  relax  after  the  twitch  due  to 
the  first  shock.  But  the  second  shock  comes  in  before  the 
relaxation  can  occur,  then  the  third  again,  and  so  on;  so 
that  continuous  tetanus  takes  the  place  of  discrete  twitch- 
ing. Similarly  in  the  auditory  nerve.  One  shock  of  air 
starts  in  it  a  current  to  the  auditory  brain-centre,  and 
affects  the  latter,  so  that  a  dry  stroke  of  sound  is  heard. 
If  other  shocks  follow  slowly,  the  brain-centre  recovers  its 
equilibrium  after  each,  to  be  again  upset  in  the  same  way 
by  the  next,  and  the  result  is  that  for  each  shock  of  air  a 
distinct  sensation  of  sound  occurs.  But  if  the  shock  comes 
in  too  quick  succession,  the  later  ones  reach  the  brain  be- 
fore the  effects  of  the  earlier  ones  on  that  organ  have  died 
away.  There  is  thus  an  overlapping  of  processes  in  the 
auditory  centre,  a  physiological  condition  analogous  to  the 
muscle's  tetanus,  to  which  new  condition  a  new  quality 
of  feeling,  that  of  pitch,  directly  corresponds,     Tbis  Jattei 


58  PSYCHOLOGY. 

feeling  is  a  new  kind  of  sensation  altogether,  not  a  mere 
'appearance'  due  to  many  sensations  of  dry  stroke  being 
compounded  into  one.  No  sensations  of  dry  stroke  can 
exist  under  these  circumstances,  for  their  physiological 
conditions  have  been  replaced  by  others.  What  ' com- 
pounding '  there  is  has  already  taken  place  in  the  brain- 
cells  before  the  threshold  of  sensation  was  reached.  Just 
so  rt'd  light  and  green  light  beating  on  the  retina  in  rapid 
enough  alternation,  arouse  the  central  process  to  which 
the  sensation  yellow  directly  corresponds.  The  sensa- 
tions of  red  and  of  green  get  no  chance,  under  such  con- 
ditions, to  be  born.  Just  so  if  the  muscle  could  feel,  it 
would  have  a  certain  sort  of  feeling  when  it  gave  a  single 
twitch,  but  it  would  undoubtedly  have  a  distinct  sort  of 
feeling  altogether,  when  it  contracted  tetanically;  and  this 
feeling  of  the  tetanic  contraction  would  by  no  means  be 
identical  with  a  multitude  of  the  feelings  of  twitching. 

Harmony  and  Discord. — When  several  tones  sound  to- 
gether we  may  get  peculiar  feelings  of  pleasure  or  displeas- 
ure designated  as  consonance  and  dissonance  respectively. 
A  note  sounds  most  consonant  with  its  octave.  When  with 
the  octave  the  'third'  and  the  'fifth'  of  the  note  are  sounded, 
for  instance  c — e — g — c',we  get  the  '  full  chord'  or  maximum 
of  consonance.  The  ratios  of  vibration  here  are  as  4 :  5 :  G :  8, 
?o  that  one  might  think  simple  ratios  were  the  ground  of 
harmony.  But  the  interval  c — d  is  discordant,  with  the 
comparatively  simple  ratio  8 :  9.  Helmholtz  explains  discord 
by  the  overtones  making  'beats'  together.  This  gives  a 
subtle  grating  which  is  unpleasant.  Where  the  overtones 
make  no  'beats',  or  beats  too  rapid  for  their  effect  to  be 
perceptible,  there  is  consonance,  according  to  Helmholtz, 
which  is  thus  a  negative  rather  than  a  positive  thing. 
Wundt  explains  consonance  by  the  presence  of  strong  iden- 
tical overtones  in  the  notes  which  harmonize.  No  one  of 
these  explanations  of  musical  harmony  can  be  called  quite 
satisfactory;  and  the  subject  is  too  intricate  to  be  treated 
farther  in  this  place. 


HEARING.  59 

Discriminative  Sensibility  of  the  Ear. — Weber's  law  holds 
fairly  well  for  the  intensity  of  sounds.  If  ivory  or  metal 
balls  are  dropped  on  an  ebony  or  iron  plate,  they  make  a 
sound  which  is  the  louder  as  they  are  heavier  or  dropped 
from  a  greater  height.  Experimenting  in  this  way  (after 
others)  Merkel  found  tha'  the  just  perceptible  increment 
of  loudness  required  an  increase  of  -^  of  the  original 
stimulus  everywhere  between  the  intensities  marked  20  and 
5000  of  his  arbitrary  scale.  Below  this  the  fractional  in- 
crement of  stimulus  must  be  larger;  above  it,  no  measure- 
ments were  made. 

Discrimination  of  differences  of  pitch  varies  in  different 
parts  of  the  scale.  In  the  neighborhood  of  1000  vibrations 
per  second,  one  fifth  of  a  vibration  more  or  less  can  make 
the  sound  sharp  or  flat  for  a  good  ear.  It  takes  a  much 
greater  relative  alteration  to  sound  sharp  or  flat  elsewhere 
on  the  scale.  The  chromatic  scale  itself  has  been  used  as 
an  illustration  of  Weber's  law.  The  notes  seem  to  differ 
equally  from  each  other,  yet  their  vibration-numbers  form 
a  series  of  which  each  is  a  certain  multiple  of  the  last. 
This,  however,  has  nothing  to  do  with  intensities  or  just 
perceptible  differences;  so  the  peculiar  parallelism  between 
the  sensation  series  and  the  outer-stimulns  series  forms 
here  a  case  all  by  itself,  rather  than  an  instance  under 
Weber's  more  general  law. 


CHAPTER   V. 


TOUCH,    THE   TEMPERATURE   SENSE,  THE    MUSCULAR 

SENSE,   AND    PAIN. 

Herve-endings  in  the  Skin. — "Many  of  the  afferent 
skin-nerves  end  in  connection  with  hair-bulbs  ;  the  line- 
hairs  over  most  of  the  cutaneous  surface,  projecting  from 
the  skin,  transmit  any  movement  impressed  on  them,  with 

increased  force,  to  the  nerve-fibres  at 
their  fixed  ends.  Fine  branches  of 
axis-cylinders  have  also  been  described 
as  penetrating  between  epidermic  cells 
and  ending  there  without  terminal  or- 
gans. In  or  immediately  beneath  the 
skin  several  peculiar  forms  of  nerve 
end-organs  have  also  been  described; 
they  are  known  as  (1)  Touch-cells; 
(2)  Pacinian  corpuscles;  (3)  Tactile 
corpuscles;  (4)  End-bulbs."  * 

These  bodies  all  consist  essentially  of  granules  formed  of 
connective  tissue,  in  which  or  round  about  which  one  or 
more  sensory  nerve-fibres  terminate.  They  probably  mag- 
nify impressions  just  as  a  grain  of  sand  does  in  a  shoe,  or  a 
crumb  does  in  a  finger  of  a  glove. 

Touch,  or  the  Pressure  Sense. — "Through  the  skin  we 
get  several  kinds  of  sensation;  touch  proper,  heat  and  cold, 
and  pain ;  and  we  can  with  more  or  less  accuracy  localize 
them  on  the  surface  of  the  body.  The  interior  of  the 
mouth  possesses  also  three  sensibilities.  Through  touch 
proper  we  recognize  pressure  or  traction  exerted  on  the 
skin,  and  the  force  of  the  pressure;  the  softness  or  hard- 
ness, roughness  or  smoothness,  of  the  body  producing  it ^ 

*  Martin:  op.  cit. 


Fig.  24.— End-bulbs  from 
the  conjunctiva  of  the 
human  eya,  magnified. 


TOUCH.  61 

and  the  form  of  this  when  not  too  large  to  be  felt  all  over. 
When  to  learn  the  form  of  an  object  we  move  the  hand 
over  it,  muscular  sensations  are  combined  with  proper  tac- 
tile, and  such  a  combination  of  the  two  sensations  is  fre- 
quent ;  moreover,  we  rarely  touch  anything  without  at  the 
same  time  getting  temperature  sensations;  therefore  pure 
tactile  feelings  are  rare.  From  an  evolution  jtoint  of  view, 
touch  is  probably  the  first  distinctly  differentiated  sensa- 
tion, and  this  primary  position  it  still  largely  holds  in  our 
mental  life."  * 

Objects  are  most  important  to  us  when  in  direct  contact. 
The  chief  function  of  our  eyes  and  ears  is  to  enable  us  to 
prepare  ourselves  for  contact  with  approaching  bodies,  or  to 
ward  such  contact  off.  They  have  accordingly  been  char- 
acterized as  organs  of  anticipatory  touch. 

"The  delicacy  of  the  tactile  sense  varies  on  different 
parts  of  the  skin;  it  is  greatest  on  the  forehead,  temples, 
and  back  of  the  forearm,  where  a  weight  of  2  milligr.  press- 
ing on  an  area  of  9  sq.  millim.  can  be  felt. 

"  In  order  that  the  sense  of  touch  may  be  excited  neigh- 
boring skin-areas  must  be  differently  pressed.  When  the 
hand  is  immersed  in  a  liquid,  as  mercury,  which  fits  into 
all  its  inequalities  and  presses  with  practically  the  same 
weight  on  all  neighboring  immersed  areas,  the  sense  of 
pressure  is  only  felt  at  a  line  along  the  surface,  where  the 
immersed  and  non-immersed  parts  of  the  skin  meet. 

The  Localizing  Power  of  the  Skin. — "When  the  eyes  are 
closed  and  a  point  of  the  skin  is  touched  we  can  with  some 
accuracy  indicate  the  region  stimulated;  although  tactile 
feelings  are  in  general  characters  alike,  they  differ  in  some- 
thing besides  intensity  by  which  we  can  distinguish  them ; 
some  sub-sensation  quality  not  rising  definitely  into  promi- 
nence in  consciousness  must  be  present,  comparable  to  the 
upper  partials  determining  the  timbre  of  a  tone.  The 
accuracy  of  the  localizing  power  varies  widely  in  different 

*  Martin  :  op.  cit. 


62 


ps  raw  logy. 


skin  regions  and  is  measured  by  observing  the  least  dis- 
tance which  must  separate  two  objects  (as  the  blunted 
points  of  a  pair  of  compasses)  in  order  that  they  may  be 
felt  as  two.  The  following  table  illustrates  some  of  the 
differences  observed : 

Tongue-tip : 1.1mm.  (.04  inch) 

Palm  side  of  last  phalanx  of  finger. . .     2.2  mm.  (.08  inch) 

Red  part  of  lips 4.4  mm.  (.16  inch) 

Tip  of  nose 6.6  mm.  (.24  inch) 

Back  of  second  phalanx  of  finger 11.0  mm.  (.44  inch) 

Heel 22.0  mm.  (.88  inch) 

Back  of  hand 30.8  mm.  (1.23  inches) 

Forearm 39.6  mm.  (1.58  inches) 

Sternum 44.0  mm.  (1.76  inches) 

Back  of  neck 52.8  mm.  (2.11  inches) 

Middle  of  back 66.0  mm.  (2.64  inches) 

The  localizing  power  is  a  little  more  acute  across  the  long 
axis  of  a  limb  than  in  it;  and  is  better  when  the  pressure 
is  only  strong  enough  to  just  cause  a  distinct  tactile  sensa- 
tion than  when  it  is  more  powerful ; 
it  is  also  very  readily  and  rapidly 
improvable  by  practice."  It  seems  to 
be  naturally  delicate  in  proportion 
as  the  skin  which  possesses  it  covers 
a  more  movable  part  of  the  body. 

"It  might  be  thought  that  this 
localizing  power  depended  directly 
on  nerve -distribution  ;  that  each 
touch-nerve  had  connection  with 
a  special  brain-centre  at  one  end 
(the  excitation  of  which  caused  a 
sensation  with  a  characteristic  local 
sign),  and  at  the  other  end  was  dis- 
tributed over  a  certain  skin-area,  and  that  the  larger  this 
area  the  farther  apart  might  two  points  be  and  still  give 
rise  to  only  one  sensation.  If  this  were  so,  however,  the 
peripheral  tactile  areas   (each  being  determined   by   the 


TOUCH— THE  TEMPERATURE  SENSE.  63 

anatomical  distribution  of  a  nerve-fibre)  must  have  definite 
unchangeable  limits,  which  experiment  shows  that  they  do 
not  possess.  Suppose  the  small  areas  in  Fig.  25  to  each 
represent  a  peripheral  area  of  nerve-distribution.  If  any 
two  points  in  c  were  touched  we  should  according  to  the 
theory  get  but  a  single  sensation;  but  if,  while  the  com- 
pass-points remained  the  same  distance  apart,  or  were  even 
approximated,  one  were  placed  in  c  and  the  other  on  a  con- 
tiguous area,  two  fibres  would  be  stimulated  and  we  ought 
to  get  two  sensations;  but  such  is  not  the  case;  on  the 
same  skin-region  the  points  must  be  always  the  same  dis- 
tance apart,  no  matter  how  they  be  shifted,  in  order  to  give 
rise  to  two  just  distinguishable  sensations. 

"'  It  is  probable  that  the  nerve-areas  are  much  smaller  than 
the  tactile;  and  that  several  unstimulated  must  intervene 
between  the  excited,  in  order  to  produce  sensations  which 
shall  be  distinct.  If  we  suppose  twelve  unexcited  nerve- 
areas  must  intervene,  then,  in  Fig.  25,  a  and  b  will  be  just 
on  the  limits  of  a  single  tactile  area;  and  no  matter  how 
the  points  are  moved,  so  long  as  eleven,  or  fewer,  unexcited 
areas  come  between,  we  would  get  a  single  tactile  sensation; 
in  this  way  we  can  explain  the  fact  that  tactile  areas  have 
no  fixed  boundaries  in  the  skin,  although  the  nerve-distri- 
bution in  any  part  must  be  constant.  We  also  see  why  the 
back  of  a  knife  laid  on  the  surface  causes  a  continuous 
linear  sensation,  although  it  touches  many  distinct  nerve- 
areas.  If  we  could  discriminate  the  excitations  of  each  of 
these  from  that  of  its  immediate  neighbors  we  should  get 
the  sensation  of  a  series  of  points  touching  us,  one  for  each 
nerve-region  excited;  but  in  the  absence  of  intervening 
unexcited  nerve-areas  the  sensations  are  fused  together. 

The  Temperature-sense.  Its  Terminal  Organs.—"  By  this 
we  mean  our  faculty  of  perceiving  cold  and  warmth;  and, 
with  the  help  of  these  sensations,  of  perceiving  tempera- 
ture differences  in  external  objects.  Its  organ  is  the  whole 
skin,  the  mucuos  membrane  of  mouth  and  fauces,  pharynx 


64 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


CP 


Hairs 


II  I' 


und  gullet,  and  the  entry  of  the  nares.  Direct  heating  or 
cooling  of  a  sensory  nerve  may  stimulate  it  and  cause  pain, 
but  not  a  true  temperature-sensation;  hence  we  assume  the 
presence  of  temperature  end-organs.  [These  have  not  yet 
been  ascertained  anatomically.  Physiologically,  however, 
the  demonstration  of  special  spots  in  the  skin  for  feeling 
heat  and  cold  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  discoveries  of 
recent  years.  If  one  draw  a  pencil-point  over  the  palm  or 
cheek  one  will  notice  certain  spots  of  sudden  coolness. 
These  are  the  cold-spots;  the  heat-spots  are  less  easy  to 
single  out.     Goldscheider,  Blix,  and  Donaldson  have  made 

minute  exploration  of  determi- 
nate tracts  of  skin  and  found 
the  heat-  and  cold-spots  thick- 
set and  permanently  distinct. 
Between  them  no  temperature- 
sensation  is  excited  by  contact 
with  a  pointed  cold  or  hot 
object.  Mechanical  and  faradic 
irritation  also  excites  in  these  points  their  specific  feelings 
respectively.] 

The  feeling  of  temperature  is  relative  to  the  state  of  the 
skin.  "  In  a  comfortable  room  we  feel  at  no  part  of  the 
body  either  heat  or  cold,  although  different  parts  of  its 
surface  are  at  different  temperatures;  the  fingers  and  nose 
being  cooler  than  the  trunk  which  is  covered  by  clothes, 
and  this,  in  turn,  cooler  than  the  interior  of  the  mouth. 
The  temperature  which  a  given  region  of  the  temperature- 
organ  has  (as  measured  by  a  thermometer)  when  it  feels 
neither  heat  nor  cold,  is  its  temperature-sensation  zero,  and 
is  not  associated  with  any  one  objective  temperature;  for 
not  only,  as  we  have  just  seen,  does  it  vary  in  different 
parts  of  the  organ,  but  also  on  the  same  part  from  time  to 
time.  Whenever  a  skin-region  has  a  temperature  above  its 
sensation-zero  we  feel  warmth ;  and  vice  versa :  the  sensa- 
tion is  more  marked  the  greater  the  difference,  and  the  more 
suddenly  it  is  produced ;  touching  a  metallic  body,  whicb 


Fig.  26.  —  The  figure  marked  C  P 
shows  the  fold-spots,  that,  marked 
H  P  the  heat-spots,  and  the  middle 
one  the  hairs  on  a  certain  patch  of 
skin  on  one  of  Goldscheider's  fin- 
gers. 


THE  MUSCULAR  SENSE.  65 

conducts  heat  rapidly  to  or  from  the  skin,  causes  a  more 
marked  hot  or  cold  sensation  than  touching  a  worse  con- 
ductor, as  a  piece  of  wood,  of  the  same  temperature. 

"  The  change  of  temperature  in  the  organ  may  be  brought 
about  by  changes  in  the  circulatory  apparatus  (more  blood 
flowing  through  the  skin  warms  it  and  less  leads  to  its  cool- 
ing), or  by  temperature-changes  in  gases,  liquids,  or  solids 
in  contact  with  it.  Sometimes  we  fail  to  distinguish  clearly 
whether  the  cause  is  external  or  internal;  a  person  coming 
in  from  a  windy  walk  often  feels  a  room  uncomfortably 
warm  which  is  not  really  so;  the  exercise  has  accelerated 
his  circulation  and  tended  to  warm  his  skin,  but  the  moving 
outer  air  has  rapidly  conducted  off  the  extra  heat;  on 
entering  the  house  the  stationary  air  there  does  this  less 
quickly,  the  skin  gets  hot,  and  the  cause  is  supposed  to  be 
oppressive  heat  of  the  room.  Hence,  frequently,  opening 
windows  and  sitting  in  a  draught,  with  its  concomitant 
risks;  whereas  keeping  quiet  for  five  or  ten  minutes,  until 
the  circulation  has  returned  to  its  normal  rate,  would  attain 
the  same  end  without  danger. 

"The  acuteness  of  the  temperature-sense  is  greatest  at 
temperatures  within  a  few  degrees  of  30°  C.  (86°  F.);  at 
these  differences  of  less  than  0.1°  C.  can  be  discriminated. 
As  a  means  of  measuring  absolute  temperatures,  however, 
the  skin  is  very  unreliable,  on  account  of  the  changeability 
of  its  sensation-zero.  We  can  localize  temperature-sensa- 
tions much  as  tactile,  but  not  so  accurately."  * 

Muscular  Sensation. — The  sensation  in  the  muscle  itself 
cannot  well  be  distinguished  from  that  in  the  tendon  or 
in  its  insertion.  In  muscular  fatigue  the  insertions  are  the 
places  most  painfully  felt.  In  muscular  rheumatism,  how- 
ever, the  whole  muscle  grows  painful;  and  violent  con- 
traction such  as  that  caused  by  the  faradic  current,  or 
known  as  cramp,  produces  a  severe  and  peculiar  pain  felt  in 

*  Martin  :  op.  cit.,  with  omissions. 


66  PSYCHOLOGY. 

the  whole  mass  of  muscle  affected.  Sachs  also  thoughl 
that  he  had  demonstrated,  both  experimentally  ami  ana- 
tomically, the  existence  <»!'  special  sensory  nen  o-fibres,  dis- 
tinct from  the  motor  fibres,  in  the  frog's  muscle.  The 
latter  end  in  the  '  terminal  plates/  the  former  in  a  network. 

Great  importance  has  been  attached  to  the  muscular 
sense  as  a  factor  in  our  perceptions,  not  only  of  weight  and 
pressure,  but  of  the  space-relations  between  things  gener- 
ally. Our  eyes  and  our  hands,  in  their  explorations  of 
space,  move  over  it  and  through  it.  It  is  usually  supposed 
that  without  this  sense  of  an  intervening  motion  performed 
we  should  not  perceive  two  seen  points  or  two  touched 
points  to  be  separated  by  an  extended  interval.  I  am  far 
from  denying  the  immense  participation  of  experiences  of 
motion  in  the  construction  of  our  space-perceptions.  V>\\t 
it  is  still  an  open  question  hoiv  our  muscles  help  us  in  these 
experiences,  whether  by  their  own  sensations,  or  by  awak- 
ening sensations  of  motion  on  our  skin,  retina,  and  articular 
surfaces.  The  latter  seems  to  me  the  more  probable  view, 
and  the  reader  may  be  of  the  same  opinion  after  reading 
Chapter  VI. 

Sensibility  to  Weight. — When  we  wish  to  estimate  accu- 
rately the  weight  of  an  object  we  always,  when  possible, 
lift  it,  and  so  combine  muscular  and  articular  with  tactile 
sensations.  By  this  means  Ave  can  form  much  better 
judgments. 

Weber  found  that  Avhereas  \  must  be  added  to  a  wreight 
resting  on  the  hand  for  the  increase  to  be  felt,  the  same 
hand  actively  'hefting'  the  weight  could  feel  an  addition 
of  as  little  as  ,1-.  Merkel's  recent  and  very  careful  experi- 
ments, in  which  the  linger  pressed  down  the  beam  of  a 
balance  counterweigh  ted  by  from  25  to  SO'.'O  grams,  showed 
that  between  200  and  2000  grams  a  constant  fractional 
increase  of  about  -^  was  felt  when  there  was  no  movement 
of  the  finger,  and  of  about  /,,  when  there  was  movement. 
Above  and  below  these  limits  the  discriminative  power 
grew  less. 


PAIN. 


67 


Pain. — The  physiology  of  pain  is  still  an  enigma.  One 
might  suppose  separate  afferent  fibres  with  their  own  end- 
organs  to  carry  painful  impressions  to  a  specific  pain-centre. 
Or  one  might  suppose  such  a  specific  centre  to  be  reached 
by  currents  of  overflow  from  the  other  sensory  centres 
when  the  violence  of  their  inner  excitement  should  have 
reached  a  certain  pitch.  Or  again  one  might  suppose  a 
certain  extreme  degree  of  inner  excitement  to  produce  the 
feeling  of  pain  in  all  the  centres.  It  is  certain  that  sensa- 
tions of  every  order,  which  in  moderate  degrees  are  rather 
pleasant  than  otherwise,  become  painful  when  their  inten- 
sity grows  strong.  The  rate  at  which  the  agreeableness 
and  disagreeableness  vary  with  the  intensity  Of  a  sensation 
is  roughly  represented  by  the  dotted  curve  in  Fig.  27.    The 


Fig.  27  (after  Wundt). 

horizontal  line  represents  the  threshold  both  of  sensational 
and  of  agreeable  sensibility.  Below  the  line  is  the  disagree- 
ble.  The  continuous  curve  is  that  of  Weber's  law  which 
we  iearned  to  know  in  Fig.  2,  p.  18.  With  the  minimal 
sensation  the  agreeableness  is  nil,  as  the  dotted  curve  shows. 
It  rises  at  first  more  slowly  than  the  sensational  intensity, 
then  faster;  and  reaches  its  maximum  before  the  sensation 
is  near  its  acme.     After  its  maximum  of  agreeableness  the 


68  PSYCHOLOGY. 

dotted  line  rapidly  sinks,  and  soon  tumbles  below  the  hori- 
zontal into  the  realm  of  the  disagreeable  or  painful  in 
which  it  declines.  That  all  sensations  are  painful  when 
too  strong  is  a  piece  of  familiar  knowledge.  Light,  sound, 
odors,  the  taste  of  sweet  even,  cold,  heat,  and  all  the  skin- 
sensations,  must  be  moderate  to  be  enjoyed. 

The  quality  of  the  sensation  complicates  the  question,  how- 
ever, for  in  some  sensations,  as  bitter,  sour,  salt,  and  certain 
smells,  the  turning  point  of  the  dotted  curve  must  be  drawn 
very  near  indeed  to  the  beginning  of  the  scale.  In  the 
skin  the  painful  quality  soon  becomes  so  intense  as  entirely 
to  overpower  the  specific  quality  of  the  sort  of  stimulus. 
Heat,  cold,  and  pressure  are  indistinguishable  when  extreme 
— we  only  feel  the  pain.  The  hypothesis  of  separate  end- 
organs  in  the  skin  receives  some  corroboration  from  recent 
experiments,  for  both  Blix  and  Goldscheider  have  found, 
along  with  their  special  heat-  and  cold  spots,  also  special 
'  pain-spots '  on  the  skin.  Mixed  in  with  these  are  spots 
which  are  quite  feelingless.  However  it  may  stand  with 
the  terminal  pain-spots,  separate  paths  of  conduction  to  the 
brain,  for  painful  and  for  merely  tactile  stimulations  of 
the  skin,  are  made  probable  by  certain  facts.  In  the  con- 
dition termed  analgesia,  a  touch  is  felt,  but  the  most  vio- 
lent pinch,  burn,  or  electric  spark  destructive  of  the  tissue 
will  awaken  no  sensation.  This  may  occur  in  disease  of 
the  cord,  by  suggestion  in  hypnotism,  or  in  certain  stages 
of  ether  and  chloroform  intoxication.  "  In  rabbits  a  similar 
state  of  things  was  produced  by  Schiff,  by  dividing  the 
gray  matter  of  the  cord,  leaving  the  posterior  white  col- 
umns intact.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the  latter  were  divided 
and  the  gray  substance  left,  there  was  increased  sensitive- 
ness to  pain,  and  possibly  touch  proper  was  lost.  Such 
experiments  make  it  pretty  certain  that  when  afferent 
impulses  reach  the  spinal  cord  at  any  level  and  there  enter 
its  gray  matter  with  the  posterior  root-fibres,  they  travel 
on  in  different  tracts  to  conscious  centres;  the  tactile  ones 
coming  soon  out  of  the  gray  network  and  coursing  on  in  a 


PAIN.  69 

readily  conducting  white  fibre,  while  the  painful  ones  travel 
on  farther  in  the  gray  substance.  It  is  still  uncertain  if 
both  impulses  reach  the  cord  in  the  same  fibres.  The  gray 
network  conducts  nerve-impulses,  but  not  easily;  they  tend 
soon  to  be  blocked  in  it.  A  feeble  (tactile)  impulse  reach- 
ing it  by  an  afferent  fibre  might  only  spread  a  short  way 
and  then  pass  out  into  a  single  good  conducting  fibre  in  a 
white  column,  and  proceed  to  the  brain;  while  a  stronger 
(painful)  impulse  would  radiate  farther  in  the  gray  matter, 
and  perhaps  break  out  of  it  by  many  fibres  leading  to  the 
brain  through  the  white  columns,  and  so  give  rise  to  an 
incoordinate  and  ill-localized  sensation.  That  pains  are 
badly  localized,  and  worse  the  more  intense  they  are,  is  a 
well-known  fact,  which  would  thus  receive  an  explana- 
tion." * 

Pain  also  gives  rise  to  ill-coordinated  movements  of 
defence.  The  stronger  the  pain  the  more  violent  the  start. 
Doubtless  in  low  animals  pain  is  almost  the  only  stimulus; 
and  we  have  preserved  the  peculiarity  in  so  far  that  to-day 
it  is  the  stimulus  of  our  most  energetic,  though  not  of  our 
most  discriminating,  reactions. 

Taste,  smell,  as  well  as  hunger,  thirst,  nausea,  and  other 
so-called  'common'  sensations  need  not  be  touched  on  in 
this  book,  as  almost  nothing  of  psychological  interest  is 
known  concerning  them. 

*  Martin  :  op.  cit. 


CHAPTER  VL 

SENSATIONS  OP  MOTION. 

I  TREAT  of  these  in  a  separate  ehapter  in  order  to  give 
them  the  emphasis  which  their  importance  deserves.  They 
are  of  two  orders: 

1)  Sensations  of  objects  moving  over  our  sensory  sur- 
faces; and 

2)  Sensations  of  our  whole  person's  translation  through 
space. 

I)  The  Sensation  of  Motion  over  Surfaces. — This  has 
generally  been  assumed  by  physiologists  to  be  impossible 
until  the  positions  of  terminus  a  quo  and  terminus  ad  quern 
are  severally  cognized,  and  the  successive  occupancies  of 
these  positions  by  the  moving  body  are  perceived  to  be 
separated  by  a  distinct  interval  of  time.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  however,  we  cognize  only  the  very  slowest  motions  in 
this  way.  Seeing  the  hand  of  a  clock  at  XII  and  after- 
wards at  VI,  I  jndge  that  it  has  moved  through  the 
interval.  Seeing  the  sun  now  in  the  east  and  again  in  the 
west,  I  infer  it  to  have  passed  over  my  head.  But  we  can 
only  infer  that  which  we  already  generically  know  in 
some  more  direct  fashion,  and  it  is  experimentally  certain 
that  we  have  the  feeling  of  motion  given  us  as  a  direct  and 
simple  sensation.  Czermak  long  ago  pointed  out  the  dif- 
ference between  seeing  the  motion  of  the  second-hand  of  a 
watch,  when  we  look  directly  at  it,  and  noticing  the  fact 
that  it  has  altered  its  position,  whilst  our  gaze  is  fixed 
upon  some  other  point  of  the  dial-plate.  In  the  first  case  we 
have  a  specific  quality  of  sensation  which  is  absent  in  the 
second.  If  the  reader  will  find  a  portion  of  his  skin — the 
arm,  for  example— where  a  pair  of  compass-points  an  inch 


SENSATIONS  OF  MOTION.  71 

apart  are  felt  as  one  impression,  and  if  he  will  then  trace 
lines  a  tenth  of  an  inch  long  on  that  spot  with  a  pencil- 
point,  he  will  be  distinctly  aware  of  the  point's  motion  and 
vaguely  aware  of  the  direction  of  the  motion.  The  per- 
ception of  the  motion  here  is  certainly  not  derived  from  a 
preexisting  knowledge  that  its  starting  and  ending  points 
are  separate  positions  in  space,  because  positions  in  space 
ten  times  wider  apart  fail  to  be  discriminated  as  such  when 
excited  by  the  compass-points.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
retina.  One's  fingers  when  cast  upon  its  peripheral  por- 
tions cannot  be  counted — that  is  to  say,  the  five  retinal 
tracts  which  they  occupy  are  not  distinctly  apprehended 
by  the  mind  as  five  separate  positions  in  space — and  yet 
the  slightest  movement  of  the  fingers  is  most  vividly  per- 
ceived as  movement  and  nothing  else.  It  is  thus  certain 
that  our  sense  of  movement,  being  so  much  more  delicate 
than  our  sense  of  position,  cannot  possibly  be  derived 
from  it. 

Vierordt,  at  almost  tJie  same  time,  called  attention  to 
certain  persistent  illusions,  amongst  which  are  these:  If 
another  person  gently  trace  a  line  across  our  wrist  or  finger, 
the  latter  being  stationary,  it  will  feel  to  us  as  if  the  mem- 
ber were  moving  in  the  opposite  direction  to  the  tracing 
point.  If,  on  the  contrary,  we  move  our  limb  across  a 
fixed  point,  it  will  seem  as  if  the  point  were  moving  as 
well.  If  the  reader  will  touch  his  forehead  with  his  fore- 
finger kept  motionless,  and  then  rotate  the  head  so  that 
the  skin  of  the  forehead  passes  beneath  the  finger's  tip,  he 
will  have  an  irresistible  sensation  of  the  latter  being  itself 
in  motion  in  the  opposite  direction  to  the  head.  So  in 
abducting  the  fingers  from  each  other;  some  may  move 
and  the  rest  be  still,  but  the  still  ones  will  feel  as  if  they 
were  actively  separating  from  the  rest.  These  illusions, 
according  to  Vierordt,  are  survivals  of  a  primitive  form  of 
perception,  when  motion  was  felt  as  such,  but  ascribed  to 
the  whole 'content' of  consciousness,  and  not  yet  distin- 
guished, as  belonging  exclusively  to  one  of  its  parts.    When 


72  PSYCHOLOGY. 

our  perception  is  fully  developed  we  go  beyond  the  mere. 
relative  motion  of  thing  and  ground,  and  can  ascribe  abso- 
lute motion  to  one  of  these  components  of  our  total  object, 
and  absolute  resl  to  another.  When,  in  vision  for  example, 
the  whole  field  of  view  seems  to  move  together,  we  think  it 
is  ourselves  or  our  eyes  which  are  moving;  and  any  object 
in  the  foreground  which  may  seem  to  move  relatively  to  tht 
background  is  judged  by  us  to  be  really  still.  But  primi- 
tively this  discrimination  is  not  perfectly  made.  The 
sensation  of  the  motion  spreads  over  all  that  Ave  see  and 
infects  it,  Any  relative  motion  of  object  and  retina  both 
makes  the  object  seem  to  move,  and  makes  us  feel  our- 
selves in  motion.  Even  now  when  our  whole  field  of  view 
really  does  move  we  get  giddy,  and  feel  as  if  we  too  were 
moving;  and  we  still  see  an  apparent  motion  of  the  entire 
field  of  view  whenever  we  suddenly  jerk  our  head  and 
eyes  or  shake  them  quickly  to  and  fro.  Pushing  our  eye- 
balls gives  the  same  illusion.  AYe  know  in  all  these  cases 
what  really  happens,  but  the  conditions  are  unusual,  so 
our  primitive  sensation  persists  unchecked.  So  it  does 
when  clouds  float  by  the  moon.  AVe  know  the  moon  is 
Btill;  but  we  see  it  move  faster  than  the  clouds.  Even 
when  we  slowly  move  our  eyes  the  primitive  sensation  per- 
sists under  the  victorious  conception.  If  we  notice  closely 
the  experience,  we  find  that  any  object  towards  which  we 
look  appears  moving  to  meet  our  eye. 

But  the  most  valuable  contribution  to  the  subject  is  the 
paper  of  G.  H.  Schneider,*  who  takes  up  the  matter  zoo- 
logically, and  shows  by  examples  from  every  branch  of 
the  animal  kingdom  that  movement  is  the  quality  by  which 
animals  most  easily  attract  each  other's  attention.  The 
instinct  of  '  shamming  death '  is  no  shamming  of  death  at 
all,  but  rather  a  paralysis  through  fear,  which  saves  the 
insect,  crustacean,  or  other  creature  from  being  noticed  at 
all  by  his  enemy.     It  is  paralleled  in  the  human  race  by 


*  Vierteljahrsch.  far  wiss.  Pbilos.,  n.  377. 


SENSATIONS  OF  MOTION.  73 

the  breath-holding  stillness  of  the  boy  playing  '  I  spy/  to 
whom  the  seeker  is  near;  and  its  obverse  side  is  shown  in 
our  involuntary  waving  of  arms,  jumping  up  and  down, 
and  so  forth,  when  we  wish  to  attract  someone's  attention 
at  a  distance.  Creatures  'stalking'  their  prey  and  crea- 
tures hiding  from  their  pursuers  alike  show  how  immobility 
diminishes  conspicuity.  In  the  woods,  if  Ave  are  quiet,  the 
squirrels  and  birds  will  actually  touch  us.  Flies  will  light 
on  stuffed  birds  and  stationary  frogs.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  tremendous  shock  of  feeling  the  thing  we  are  sitting 
on  begin  to  move,  the  exaggerated  start  it  gives  us  to  have 
an  insect  unexpectedly  pass  over  our  skin,  or  a  cat  noise- 
lessly come  and  snuffle  about  our  hand,  the  excessive  reflex 
effects  of  tickling,  etc.,  show  how  exciting  the  sensation  of 
motion  is  per  se.  A  kitten  cannot  help  pursuing  a  moving 
ball.  Impressions  too  faint  to  be  cognized  at  all  are  imme- 
diately felt  if  they  move.  A  fly  sitting  is  unnoticed, — we 
feel  it  the  moment  it  crawls.  A  shadow  may  be  too  faint 
to  be  perceived.  If  we  hold  a  finger  between  our  closed 
eyelid  and  the  sunshine  we  do  not  notice  its  presence. 
The  moment  we  move  it  to  and  fro,  however,  we  discern  it. 
Such  visual  perception  as  this  reproduces  the  conditions  of 
sight  among  the  radiates. 

In  ourselves,  the  main  function  of  the  peripheral  parts  of 
the  retina  is  that  of  sentinels,  which,  when  beams  of  light 
move  over  them,  cry  '  Who  goes  there  ? '  and  call  the  fovea 
to  the  spot.  Most  parts  of  the  skin  do  but  perform  the 
same  office  for  the  finger-tips.  Of  course  movement  of  sur- 
face under  object  is  (for  pur  ptoses  of  stimulation)  equiva- 
lent to  movement  of  object  over  surface.  In  exploring  the 
shapes  and  sizes  of  things  by  either  eye  or  skin  the  move- 
ments of  these  organs  are  incessant  and  unrestrainable. 
Every  such  movement  draws  the  points  and  lines  of  the 
object  across  the  surface,  imprints  them  a  hundred  times 
more  sharply,  and  drives  them  home  to  the  attention.  The 
immense  part  thus  played  by  movements  in  our  perceptive 
activity  is  held  by  many  psychologists  to  prove  that  tho 


74  PSYCHOLOGY. 

muscles  are  themselves  the  space-perceiving  organ.  Xot 
surface-sensibility,  but  'the  muscular  sense'  is  for  these 
writers  the  original  and  only  revealer  of  objective  exten- 
sion. But  t  hey  have  all  failed  to  notice  with  what  peculiar 
intensity  muscular  movements  call  Burface-sensibilities 
into  play,  and  how  largely  the  mere  discernment  of  im- 
pressions depends  on  the  mobility  of  the  surfaces  upon 
which  they  fall. 

Our  articular  surfaces  are  tactile  organs  which  become 
intensely  painful  when  inflamed.  Besides  pressure,  the 
only  stimulus  they  receive  is  their  mot  urn  upon  each  other. 
To  the  sensation  of  this  motion  more  than  anything  else 
seems  due  the  perception  of  the  position  which  our  limbs 
may  have  assumed.  Patients  cutaneously  and  muscularly 
anaesthetic  in  one  leg  can  often  prove  that  their  articular 
sensibility  remains,  by  showing  (by  movements  of  their  well 
leg)  the  positions  in  which  the  surgeon  may  place  their 
insensible  one.  Goldscheider  in  Berlin  caused  fingers, 
arms,  and  legs  to  be  passively  rotated  upon  their  various 
joints  in  a  mechanical  apparatus  whicii  registered  both  the 
velocity  of  movement  impressed  and  the  amount  of  angular 
rotation.  The  minimal  felt  amounts  of  rotation  were  much 
less  than  a  single  angular  degree  in  all  the  joints  except 
those  of  the  fingers.  Such  displacements  as  these,  Gold- 
scheider says,  can  hardly  be  detected  by  the  eye.  Anass- 
thesia  of  the  skin  produced  by  induction-currents  had 
no  disturbing  effect  on  the  perception,  nor  did  the  vari- 
ous degrees  of  pressure  of  the  moving  force  upon  the  skin 
affect  it.  It  became;  in  fact,  all  the  more  distinct  in  pro- 
portion as  the  concomitant  pressure-feelings  were  elimi- 
nated by  artificial  anesthesia.  When  the  joints  themselves, 
however,  were  made  artificially  anaesthetic,  the  r>erception 
of  the  movement  grew  obtuse  and  the  angular  rotations 
had  to  be  much  increased  before  they  were  perceptible. 
All  these  facts  prove,  ace* oiling  to  Ilerr  Goldscheider,  that 
the  joint-surfaces  and  these  alone  are  the  teat  of  the  imjjrea- 


SENSATIONS  OF  MOTION.  75 

sions  by  which  the  movements  of  our  members  are  immedi- 
ately perceived. 

2)  Sensations  of  Movement  through  Space. — These  may 
be  divided  into  feelings  of  rotation  and  feelings  of  transla- 
tion. As  Avas  stated  at  the  end  of  the  chapter  on  the  ear, 
the  labyrinth  (semicircular  canals,  utricle  and  saccule) 
seems  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  hearing.  It  is  conclu- 
sively established  to-day  that  the  semicircular  canals  are 
the  organs  of  a  sixth  special  sense,  that  namely  of  rotation. 
When  subjectively  excited,  this  sensation  is  known  as  diz- 
ziness or  vertigo,  and  rapidly  engenders  the  farther  feeling 
of  nausea.  Irritative  disease  of  the  inner  ear  causes  intense 
vertigo  (Meniere's  disease).  Traumatic  irritation  of  the 
canals  in  birds  and  mammals  makes  the  animals  tumble 
and  throw  themselves  about  in  a  way  best  explained  by 
supposing  them  to  suffer  from  false  sensations  of  falling, 
etc.,  which  they  compensate  by  reflex  muscular  acts  that 
throw  them  the  other  way.  Galvanic  irritation  of  the 
membranous  canals  in  pigeons  cause  just  the  same  compen- 
satory movements  of  head  and  eye  which  actual  rotations 
impressed  on  the  creatures  produce.  Deaf  and  dumb  per- 
sons (amongst  whom  many  must  have  had  their  auditory 
nerves  or  labyrinths  destroyed  by  the  same  disease  which 
took  away  their  hearing)  are  in  a  very  large  percentage  of 
cases  found  quite  insusceptible  of  being  made  dizzy  by 
rotation.  Purkinje  and  Mach  have  shown  that,  whatever 
the  organ  of  the  sense  of  rotation  may  be,  it  must  have  its 
seat  in  the  head.  The  body  is  excluded  by  Mach's  elaborate 
experiments. 

The  semicircular  canals,  being,  as  it  were,  six  little  spirit- 
levels  in  three  rectangular  planes,  seem  admirably  adapted 
to  be  organs  of  a  sense  of  rotation.  We  need  only  suppose 
that  when  the  head  turns  in  the  plane  of  any  one  of  them, 
the  relative  inertia  of  the  endolymph  momentarily  in- 
creases its  pressure  on  the  nerve-termini  in  the  appropri- 
ate ampulla,  which  pressure  starts  a  current  towards  the 
central  organ  for  feeling  vertigo.     This  organ  seems  to  be. 


76  PSYCHOLOGY. 

the  cerebellum,  and  the  teleology  of  the  whole  business 
would  appear  to  be  the  maintenance  of  the  upright  posi- 
tion. If  a  man  stand  with  shut  eyes  and  attend  to  his 
body,  he  will  find  that  he  is  hardly  for  a  moment  in 
equilibrium.  Incipient  fallings  towards  every  side  in  suc- 
cession are  incessantly  repaired  by  muscular  contractions 
which  restore  the  balance;  and  although  impressions  on 
the  tendons,  ligaments,  foot-soles,  joints,  etc.,  doubtless 
are  among  the  causes  of  the  compensatory  contractions, 
yet  the  strongest  and  most  special  reflex  arc  would  seem 
to  be  that  which  has  the  sensation  of  incipient  vertigo  for 
its  afferent  member.  This  is  experimentally  proved  to 
be  much  more  easily  excited  than  the  other  sensations  re- 
ferred to.  When  the  cerebellum  is  disorganized  the  reflex 
response  fails  to  occur  properly  and  loss  of  equilibrium  is 
the  result.  Irritation  of  the  cerebellum  produces  vertigo, 
loss  of  balance,  and  nausea;  and  galvanic  currents  through 
the  head  produce  various  forms  of  vertigo  correlated  with 
their  direction.  It  seems  probable  that  direct  excitement 
of  the  cerebellar  centre  is  responsible  for  these  feelings. 
In  addition  to  these  corporeal  reflexes  the  sense  of  rota- 
tion causes  compensatory  rollings  of  the  eyeballs  in  the 
opposite  direction,  to  which  some  of  the  subjective  phe- 
nomena of  optical  vertigo  are  due.  Steady  rotation  gives 
no  sensation  ;  it  is  only  starting  or  stopping,  or,  more 
generally  speaking,  acceleration  (positive  or  negative), 
which  impresses  the  end-organs  in  the  ampulla?.  The  sen- 
sation always  has  a  little  duration,  however;  and  the 
feeling  of  reversed  movement  after  whirling  violently  may 
last  for  nearly  a  minute,  slowly  fading  out. 

The  cause  of  the  sense  of  translation  (movement  for- 
wards or  backwards)  is  more  open  to  dispute.  The  seat  of 
this  sensation  has  been  assigned  to  the  semicircular  canals 
when  compounding  their  currents  to  the  brain;  and  also 
to  the  utricle.  The  latest  experimenter,  M.  Delage,  con- 
siders that  it  cannot  possibly  be  in  the  head,  and  assigns 
it  rather  to  the  entire  body,  so  far  as  its  parts  (blood-ves- 


SEjysATwys  of  motion.  77 

sels,  viscera,  etc.)  are  movable  against  each  other  and 
suffer  friction  or  pressure  from  their  relative  inertia  when 
a  movement  of  translation  begins.  M.  Delage's  exclusion 
of  the  labyrinth  from  this  form  of  sensibility  cannot, 
however,  yet  be  considered  definitively  established,  so  the 
matter  may  rest  with  this  mention. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BRAIN.* 


Embryological  Sketch. — The  brain  is  a  sort  of  pons 
asinorum  in  anatomy  until  one  gets  a  certain  general  con- 
ception of  it  as  a  clue.  Then  it  becomes  a  comparatively 
simple  affair.  The  clue  is  given  by  comparative  anatomy 
and  especially  by  embryology.  At  a  certain  moment  in 
the  development  of  all  the  higher  vertebrates  the  cerebro- 


Th. 


Fio.  28. 


Fig.  29. 
(All  after  Huguenin.) 


Fig.  30. 


spinal  axis  is  formed  by  a  hollow  tube  containing  fluid  and 
terminated  in  front  by  an  enlargement  separated  by  trans- 
verse constrictions  into  three  'cerebral  vesicles/  so  called 
(see  Fig.  28).     The  Avails  of  these  vesicles  thicken  in  most 

*  This  chapter  will  he  understood  as  a  mere  sketch  for  heginners. 
Models  will  be  found  of  assistance.  The  best  is  the  'Cerveau  de 
Texture  de  Grande  Dimension,'  made  by  Auzoux,  56  Rue  de  Van- 
girard,  Paris.  It  is  a  wonderful  work  of  art,  and  costs  300  francs 
M.  Jules  Talrich  of  No.  97  Boulevard  Saint-Germain,  Paris,  makes  a 
series  of  five  large  plaster  models,  which  I  have  found  very  useful 
for  class-room  purposes.  They  cost  350  francs,  and  are  far  better  thaD 
any  German  models  which  1  have  seen. 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BRA1JV 


79 


places,  change  in  others  into  a  thin  vascular  tissue,  and  in 
others  again  send  out  processes  which  produce  an  appear- 
ance of  farther  subdivision.  The  middle  vesicle  or  mid- 
brain (Mb  in  the  figures)  is  the  least  affected  by  change. 
Its  upper  walls  thicken  into  the  optic  lobes,  or  corpora 
quadrigemina  as  they  are  named  in  man;  its  lower  walls 
become  the  so-called  peduncles  or  crura  of  the  brain  ; 
and  its  cavity  dwindles  into  the  aqueduct  of  Silvius. 
A  section  through  the  adult  hu- 
man mid-brain  is  shown  in  Fig.  31. 
The  anterior  and  posterior  vesi- 
cles undergo  much  more  consider- 
able change.  The  walls  of  the 
posterior  vesicle  thicken  enor- 
mously in  their  foremost  portion 
and  form  the  cerebellum  on  top 


FM 


Fig.  31.— The  'nates1  are  the 
anterior  corpora  quadrige- 
mina, the  spot  above  aq  is  a 
section  of  the  sylvian  aque- 
duct.and  the  tegmentum  and 
two  '  feet'  together  make  the 
Crura.  These  are  marked 
C.C.,  and  a  cross  (+)  marks 
the  aqueduct,  in  Fig.  32. 


Fig.  3-2  (niter  Huxley). 


(Cb  in  all  the  figures)  and  the  pons  Varolii  below  (P.V.  in 
Fig.  33).  In  its  hindmost  portions  the  posterior  vesicle 
thickens  below  into  the  medulla  oblongata  (Mo  in  all  the 
figures),  whilst  on  top  its  walls  thin  out  and  melt,  so  that 
one  can  pass  a  probe  into  the  cavity  without  breaking 
through  any  truly  nervous  tissue.  The  cavity  which  one 
thus  enters  from  without  is  named  the  fourth  ventricle 
(4  in   Figs.    32  and  33).      One  can  run   the   probe   for- 


80 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


ward  through  it,  passing  first  under  the  cerebellum  and 
then  under  a  thin  sheet  of  nervous  tissue  (the  valve  of 
Vieussens)  just  anterior  thereto,  as  far  as  the  aqueduct  of 
Silvius.  Passing  through  this,  the  probe  emerges  forward 
into  what  was  once  the  cavity  of  the  anterior  vesicle.  But 
the  covering  has  melted  away  at  tins  place,  and  the  cavity 
now  forms  a  deep  compressed  pit  or  groo\e  between  the 
two  walls  of  the  vesicle,  and  is  called  the  third  ventricle 
(3  in  Figs.  32  and  33).  The  'aqueduct  of  Sylvius'  is  in 
consequence  of  this  connection  often  called  the  iter  a 
tertio  ad  quarturn  ventriculum.  The  walls  of  the  vesicle 
form  the  optic  thalami  (Th  in  all  the  figures). 


f.t 


Fig.  33  raft pr  Huxley).  ' 

From  the  anterior  vesicle  just  in  front  of  the  thalami 
there  buds  out  on  either  side  an  enlargement,  into  which 
the  cavity  of  the  vesicle  continues,  and  which  becomes  the 
hemisphere  of  that  side.  In  man  its  walls  thicken  enor- 
mously and  form  folds,  the  so-called  convolutions,  on  their 
surface.  At  the  same  time  they  grow  backwards  rather 
than  forwards  of  their  starting-point  just  in  front  of  the 
thalamus,  arching  over  the  latter;  and  growing  fastest 
along  their  top  circumference,  they  end  by  bending  down- 
wards and  forwards  again  when  they  have  passed  the  rear 
end  of  the  thalamus.  When  fully  developed  in  man,  they 
overlay  and  cover  in  all  the  other  parts  of  the  brain.  Their 
cavities  form  the  lateral  rent  rides,  easier  to  understand  by 
a  dissection  than  by  a  description!  A  probe  can  be  passed 
into  either  of  them  from  the  third  ventricle  at  its  anterior 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  TEE  BRAIN.  81 

end;  and  like  the  third  ventricle,  their  wall  is  melted 
down  along  a  certain  line,  forming  a  long  cleft  through 
which  they  can  be  entered  without  rupturing  the  nervous 
tissue.  This  cleft,  on  account  of  the  growth  of  the  hemi- 
sphere outwards,  backwards,  and  then  downwards  from  its 
starting  point,  has  got  rolled  in  and  tucked  away  beneath 
the  apparent  surface.* 

At  first  the  two  hemispheres  are  connected  only  with 
their  respective  thalami.  But  during  the  fourth  and  fifth 
months  of  embryonic  life  they  become  connected  with  each 
other  above  the  thalami  through  the  growth  between  them 
of  a  massive  system  of  transverse  fibres  which  crosses  the 
median  line  like  a  great  bridge  and  is  called  the  corpus 
callosum.  These  fibres  radiate  in  the  walls  of  both  hemi- 
spheres and  form  a  direct  connection  between  the  convolu- 
tions of  the  right  and  of  the  left  side.  Beneath  the 
corpus  callosum  another  system  of  fibres  called  the  fornix 
is  formed,  between  which  and  the  corpus  callosum  there 
is  a  peculiar  connection.  Just  in  front  of  the  thalami, 
where  the  hemispheres  begin  their  growth,  a  ganglionic 
mass  called  the  corpus  striatum  (C.S.,  Figs.  32  and  33) 
is  formed  in  their  wall.  It  is  complex  in  structure,  con- 
sisting of  two  main  parts,  called  nucleus  lenticular  is  and 
nucleus  candatus  respectively.  The  figures,  with  their 
respective  explanations,  will  give  a  better  idea  of  the  farther 
details  of  structure  than  any  verbal  description;  so,  after 
some  practical  directions  for  dissecting  the  organ,  I  will 
pass  to  a  brief  account  of  the  physiological  relations  of 
its  different  parts  to  each  other. 

Dissection  of  Sheep's  Brain. — The  way  really  to  understand  the  brain 
is  to  dissect  it.  The  brains  of  mammals  differ  only  in  their  propor- 
tions, and  from  the  sheep's  one  can  learn  all  that  is  essential  in  man's. 
The  student  is  therefore  strongly  urged  to  dissect  a  sheep's  brain. 
Full  directions  of  the  order  of  procedure  are  given  in  the  human  dis- 

*  All  the  places  in  the  brain  at  which  the  cavities  come  through 
are  filled  in  during  life  by  prolongations  of  the  membrane  called  pia 
mater,  carrying  rich  plexuses  of  blood-vessels  in  their  folds. 


82  PSYCHOLOGY. 

secting  books,  e.g.  Holden's  Practical  Anatomy  (Churchill),  Morrell's 
Student's  Manual  of  Comparative  Anatomy  and  Guide  to  Dissection 
(Longmans),  and  Foster  and  Langley's  Practical  Physiology  (Macmil- 
lan).  For  the  use  of  classes  who  cannot  procure  these  books  I  subjoin 
a  few  practical  notes.  The  instruments  needed  are  a  small  saw,  a 
chisel  with  a  shoulder,  and  a  hammer  with  a  hook  on  its  handle,  all 
three  of  which  form  part  of  the  regular  medical  autopsy-kit  and  can  be 
had  of  surgical-instrument-makers.  In  addition  a  scalpel,  a  pair  of 
scissors,  a  pair  of  dissecting-forceps,  and  a  silver  probe  are  required. 
The  solitary  student  can  find  home-made  substitutes  for  all  these 
things  but  the  forceps,  which  he  ought  to  buy. 

The  first  thing  is  to  get  off  the  skull-cap.  Make  two  saw-cuts, 
through  the  prominent  portion  of  each  condyle  (or  articular  surface 
bounding  the  hole  at  the  back  of  the  skull,  where  the  spina]  cord 
enters)  and  passing  forwards  to  the  temples  of  the  animal.  Then 
make  two  cuts,  one  on  each  side,  which  cross  these  and  meet  in  an 
angle  on  the  frontal  bone.  By.  actual  trial,  one  will  find  the  best 
direction  for  the  saw-cuts.  It  is  hard  to  saw  entirely  through  the 
skull-bone  without  in  some  places  also  sawing  into  the  brain.  Here 
is  where  the  chisel  comes  in — one  can  break  by  a  smart  blow  on  it 
with  the  hammer  any  parts  of  the  skull  not  quite  sawn  through. 
When  the  skull-cap  is  ready  to  come  off  one  will  feel  it  'wobble.' 
Insert  then  the  hook  under  its  forward  end  and  pull  firmly.  The 
bony  skull-cap  alone  will  come  away,  leaving  the  periosteum  of  the 
inner  surface  adhering  to  that  of  the  base  of  the  skull,  enveloping 
the  brain,  and  forming  the  so-called  dura  muter  or  outer  one  of  its 
'  meninges.'  This  dura  mater  should  be  slit  open  round  the  margins, 
when  the  brain  will  be  exposed  wrapped  in  its  nearest  membrane,  the 
pia  mater,  full  of  blood-vessels  whose  branches  penetrate  the  tissues. 

The  brain  in  its  pia  mater  should  now  be  carefully  *  shelled  out.' 
Usually  it  is  best  to  begin  at  the  forward  end,  turning  it  up  there 
and  gradually  working  backwards.  The  olfactory  lobes  are  liable  to 
be  torn  ;  they  must  be  carefully  scooped  from  the  pits  in  the  base  of 
the  skull  to  which  they  adhere  by  the  branches  which  they  send 
through  the  bone  into  the  nose-cavity.  It  is  well  to  have  a  little 
blunt  curved  instrument  expressly  for  this  purpose.  Next  the  optic 
nerves  tie  the  brain  down,  and  must  be  cut  through — close  to  the 
chiasma  is  easiest.  After  that  comes  the  pit  nil  art/  body,  which  has 
to  be  left  behind.  It  is  attached  by  a  neck,  the  so-called  in- 
fund&nilum,  into  the  upper  part  of  which  the  cavity  of  the  third 
ventricle  is  prolonged  downwards  for  a  short  distance.  It  has  no 
known  function  and  is  probably  a  '  rudimentary  organ.'  Other  nerves, 
Into  the  detail  of  which  I  shall  not  go,  must  be  cut  successively. 
Their  places  in  the  human  brain  are  shown  in  Fig.  34.     When  they 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BRAIN. 


83 


are  divided,  and  the  portion  of  dura  mater  (tentorium)  which  projects 
between  the  hemispheres  and  the  cerebellum  is  cut  through  at  its 
edges,  the  brain  comes  readily  out. 

It  is  best  examined  fresh.  If  numbers  of  brains  have  to  be  pre- 
pared and  kept,  I  have  found  it  a  good  plan  to  put  them  first  in  a 
solution  of  chloride  of  zinc,  just  dense  enough  at  first  to  float  them, 


Fig.  34. — The  human  Drain  from  below,  with  its  nerves  numbered,  after  Henle 
I,  olfactory;  II,  optic;  III,  oculo-motorius;  IV,  trochlearis;  V,  trifacial;  VI, 
abducens  oculi;  VII,  facial;  VIII,  auditory;  IX,  Klosso-pharyngeal;  X,  pneu- 
mogastric;  XI,  spinal  accessory;  XII,  hypoglossal;  ncl,  first  cervical,  etc. 

and  to  leave  them  for  a  fortnight  or  less.  This  softens  the  pia  mater, 
which  can  then  be  removed  in  large  shreds,  after  which  it  is  enough 
to  place  them  in  quite  weak  alcohol  to  preserve  them  indefinitely, 
tough,  elastic,  and  in  their  natural  shape,  though  bleached  to  a 
uniform  white  color.  Before  immersion  in  the  chloride  all  the  more 
superficial  adhesions  of  the  parts  must  be  broken  through,  to  bring 


84  PSYCHOLOGY. 

the  fluid  into  contact  with  a  maximum  of  surface.  If  the  brain  is  used 
fresh,  the  pia  mater  had  better  be  removed  carefully  in  most  places 
with  the  forceps,  scalpel,  and  scissors.  Over  the  grooves  between 
the  cerebellum  and  hemispheres,  and  between  the  cerebellum  and 
medulla  oblongata,  thin  cobwebby  moist  transparent  \estiges  of  tbe 
arachnoid  membrane  will  be  found. 

The  subdivisions  may  now  be  examined  in  due  order.  For  the 
convolutions,  blood-vessels,  and  nerves  the  more  special  books  must 
be  consulted. 

First,  looked  at  from  above,  with  the  deep  longitudinal  fissure  be 
tween  them,  the  hemispheres  are  seen  partly  overlapping  the  intri- 
cately wrinkled  cerebellum,  which  juts  out  behind,  and  covers  in  turn 
almost  all  the  medulla  oblongata.  Drawing  the  hemispheres  apart, 
the  brilliant  white  corpus  callosum  is  revealed,  some  half  an  inch 
below  their  surface.  There  is  no  median  partition  in  the  cerebel- 
lum, but  a  median  elevation  instead. 

Looking  at  the  brain  from  below,  one  still  sees  the  longitudinal 
fissure  in  the  median  line  in  front,  and  on  either  side  of  it  the 
olfactory  lobes,  much  larger  than  in  man;  the  optic  tracts  and  com- 
missure or  '  chiasma' ;  the  infundibulurn  cut  through  just  behind 
them  ;  and  behind  that  the  single  corpus  albicans  or  mamillttrr,  whose 
function  is  unknown  and  which  is  double  in  man.  Next  the  crura 
appear,  converging  upon  the  pons  as  if  carrying  fibres  back  from  either 
side.  The  pons  itself  succeeds,  much  less  prominent  than  in  man  ; 
and  finally  behind  it  comes  the  medulla  oblongata,  broad  and  fiat  and 
relatively  large.  The  pons  looks  like  a  sort  of  collar  uniting  the  two 
halves  of  the  cerebellum,  and  surrounding  the  medulla,  whose  fibres 
by  the  time  they  have  emerged  anteriorly  from  beneath  the  collar 
have  divided  into  the  two  crura.  The  inner  relations  are,  however, 
somewhat  less  simple  than  what  this  description  may  suggest. 

Now  turn  forward  the  cerebellum  ;  pull  out  the  vascular  choroid 
-plexuses  of  the  pia,  which  fill  the  fourth  ventricle  ;  and  bring  the 
upper  surface  of  the  medulla  oblongata  into  view.  The  fourth  ventricle 
is  a  triangular  depression  terminating  in  a  posterior  point  called  the 
calamus  scriptorius.  (Here  a  very  fine  probe  may  pass  into  the  central 
canal  of  the  spinal  cord.)  The  lateral  boundary  of  the  ventricle  on 
either  side  is  formed  by  the  restiform  body  or  column,  which  runs  into 
the  cerebellum,  forming  its  inferior  or  posterior  peduncle  on  that  side. 
Including  the  calamus  scriptorius  by  their  divergence,  the  posterior 
columns  of  the  spinal  cord  continue  into  the  medulla  as  the  fasciculi 
graciles.  These  are  at  first  separated  from  the  broad  restiform 
bodies  by  a  slight  groove.  But  this  disappears  anteriorly,  and  the 
'  slender '  and  '  ropelike '  strands  soon  become  outwardly  indistin 
guishable. 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BRAIN. 


85 


Turn  next  to  the  ventral  surface  of  the  medulla,  and  note  the  anterior 
pyramids,  two  roundish  cords,  one  on  either  side  of  the  slight  median 
groove.  The  pyramids  are  crossed  and  closed  over  anteriorly  by  the 
pons  Varolii,  a  broad  transverse  band  which  surrounds  them  like  a 
collar,  and  runs  up  into  the  cerebellum  on  either  side,  forming  its 
■middle  peduncles.     The  pons  has  a  slight  median  depression  and  its 


Fig.  35. — Fourth  ventricle,  etc.  (Henle).  Ill,  third  ventricle;  IV,  fourth  ven- 
tricle; P.  anterior,  middle,  and  posterior  peduncles  of  cerebellum  cut  through, 
Cr,  restiform  body;  Fy,  funiculus  gracilis;  Cq,  corpora  quadrigemina. 


posterior  edge  is  formed  by  the  trapezium  on  either  side.  The 
trapezium  consists  of  fibres  which,  instead  of  surrounding  the  pyramid, 
seem  to  start  from  alongside  of  it.  It  is  not  visible  in  man.  The 
olivary  bodies  are  small  eminences  on  the  medulla  lying  just  laterally 
of  the  pyramids  and  below  the  trapezium. 

Now  cut  through  the  peduncles  of  the  cerebellum,  close  to  their 
entrance  into  that  organ.  They  give  one  surface  of  section  on  each 
side,  though  they  receive  contributions  from  three  directions.     The 


86  PSYCHOLOGY. 

posterior  and  middle  portions  we  have  seen  :  the  anterior  peduncles 
pass  forward  to  the  corpora  quadriyemiua.  The  thin  white  layer  of 
nerve-tissue  between  them  and  continuous  with  them  is  called  the 
mire  of  Vu  U88t  ns.  It  covers  part  of  the  canal  from  the  fourth  ven- 
tricle to  the  third.  The  cerebellum  being  removed,  examine  it,  and 
cut  sections  to  show  the  peculiar  distribution  of  white  and  gray 
matter,  forming  an  appearance  called  the  arbor  vitas  in  the  books. 

Now  bend  up  the  posterior  edge  of  the  hemispheres,  exposing  the 
corpora  quadrigemina  (of  which  the  anterior  pair  are  dubbed  the  nates 
and  the  posterior  the  testes),  and  noticing  the  pineal  gland,  a  small 
median  organ  situated  just  in  front  of  them  and  probably,  like  the 
pituitary  body,  a  vestige  of  something  useful  in  premammalian  times 
The  rounded  posterior  edge  of  the  corpus  callosum  is  visible  now 
passing  from  one  hemisphere  to  the  other.  Turn  it  still  farther 
up,  letting  the  medulla,  etc.,  hang  down  as  much  as  possible  and 
trace  the  under  surface  from  this  edge  forward.  It  is  broad  behind 
but  narrows  forward,  becoming  continuous  with  the  fornix.  The 
anterior  6tem,  so  to  speak,  of  this  organ  plunges  down  just  in 
front  of  the  optic  thalumi,  which  now  appear  with  the  fornix  arch- 
ing over  them,  and  the  median  third  ventricle  between  them.  The 
margins  of  the  fornix,  as  they  pass  backwards,  diverge  laterally 
farther  than  the  margins  of  the  corpus  callosum,  and  under  the  name 
of  corpora  fimbriata  are  carried  into  the  lateral  ventricles,  as  will  be 
seen  again. 

It  takes  a  good  topographical  mind  to  understand  these  ventricles 
clearly,  even  when  they  are  followed  with  eye  and  hand.  A  verbal 
description  is  absolutely  useless.  The  essential  thing  to  remember  is 
that  they  are  offshoots  from  the  original  cavity  (now  the  third  ven- 
tricle) of  the  anterior  vesicle,  and  that  a  great  split  has  occurred  in 
the  walls  of  the  hemispheres  so  that  they  (the  lateral  ventricles) 
now  communicate  with  the  exterior  along  a  cleft  which  appears  sickle- 
shaped,  as  it  were,  and  folded  in. 

The  student  will  probably  examine  the  relations  of  the  parts  in 
various  ways.  But  he  will  do  well  to  begin  in  any  case  by  cutting 
horizontal  slices  off  the  hemispheres  almost  down  to  the  level  of  the 
corpus  callosum,  and  examining  the  distribution  of  gray  and  white 
matter  on  the  surfaces  of  section,  any  one  of  which  is  the  so-called 
centrum  ovale.  Then  let  him  cut  down  in  a  fore-and-aft  direction 
along  the  edge  of  the  corpus  callosum,  till  he  comes  'through'  and 
draw  the  hemispherical  margin  of  the  cut  outwards — he  will  see  a 
space  which  is  the  ventricle,  and  which  farther  cutting  along  the  side 
and  removing  of  its  hemisphere-roof  will  lay  more  bare.  The  most 
conspicuous  object  on  its  Moor  is  the  nucleus  caudatus  of  the  corpus 
striatum. 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BRAIN. 


«7 


Cut  the  corpus  callosurn  transversely  through  near  its  posterior  edge 
and  bend  the  anterior  portion  of  it  forwards  and  sideways.  The  rear 
edge  (splenium)  left  in  situ  bends  round  and  downwards  and  becomes 


Fio  36. — Horizontal  section  of  human  brain  just  above  the  tlialami. — Cd,  cor- 
pus callosurn  in  section;  Cs, corpus  striatum ;  SI,  septum  lucidum;  Cf,  columns 
of  the  fornix;  Tho,  optic  thalami;  Cn,  pineal  gland.    (After  Henle.) 

continuous  with  the  fornix.  The  anterior  part  is  also  continuous  with 
the  fornix,  but  more  along  the  median  line,  where  a  thinnish  mem- 
brane, the  septum  lucidum,  triangular  in  shape,  reaching  from  the  one 
body  to  the  other,  practically  forms  a  sort  of  partition  between  the 


88  PSYCHOLOGY. 

contiguous  portion  of  the  lateral  ventricles  on  the  two  sides.  Break 
through  the  septum  if  need  be  and  expose  the  upper  surface  of  the 
fornix,  broad  behind  and  narrow  in  front  where  its  anterior  pillars 
plunge  down  in  front  of  the  third  ventricle  (from  a  thickening  in 
whose  anterior  walls  they  were  originally  formed),  and  finally  pene- 
trate tbe  corpus  albicans.  Cut  these  pillars  through  and  fold  them 
back,  exposing  the  thalamic  portion  of  the  brain,  and  noting  the 
under  surface  of  the  fornix.  Its  diverging  posterior  pillars  run  back- 
wards, downwards,  and  then  forwards  again,  forming  with  their 
sharp  edges  the  corpora  fimbriate/,,  which  bound  the  cleft  by  which 
the  ventricle  lies  open.  The  semi-cylindrical  welts  behind  the 
corpora  fi/mbriata  and  parallel  thereto  in  the  wall  of  the  ventricle  are 
the  liipjioi'iunpi.  Imagine  the  fornix  and  corpus  callosum  shortened 
in  the  fore-and-aft  direction  to  a  transverse  cord;  imagine  the  hemi- 
spheres not  having  grown  backwards  and  downwards  round  the 
thalamus;  and  the  corpus  flmbriatumon  either  side  would  then  be  the 
upper  or  anterior  margin  of  a  split  in  the  wall  of  the  hemispheric 
ventricle  of  which  the  lower  and  posterior  margin  would  be  the 
posterior  border  of  the  corpus  striatum  where  it  grows  out  of  the 
thalamus. 

The  little  notches  just  behind  the  anterior  pillar  of  the  fornix  and 
between  them  and  the  thalami  are  the  so-called  foramina  of  Monro 
through  which  the  plexus  of  vessels,  etc.,  passes  from  the  median  to 
the  lateral  ventricles. 

See  the  thick  middle  commissure  joining  the  two  thalami,  just  as 
the  corpus  callosum  and  fornix  join  the  hemispheres.  These  are  all 
erabryological  aftergrowths.  Seek  also  the  anterior  commissure  cross- 
ing just  in  front  of  the  anterior  pillars  of  the  fornix,  as  well  as  the 
posterior  commissure  with  its  lateral  prolongations  along  the  thalami, 
just  below  the  pineal  gland. 

On  a  median  section,  note  the  thinnish  anterior  wall  of  the  thiro 
ventricle  and  its  prolongation  downwards  into  the  infundibulum. 

Turn  up  or  cut  off  the  rear  end  of  one  hemisphere  so  as  to  see 
clearly  the  optic  tracts  turning  upwards  towards  the  rear  corner  of 
the  thalamus.  The  corpora  geniculate  to  which  they  also  go,  distinct 
in  man,  are  less  so  in  the  sheep.  The  lower  ones  are  visible  between 
the  optic-tract  band  and  the  '  testes,'  however. 

The  brain's  principal  parts  are  thus  passed  in  review.  A  longi- 
tudinal section  of  the  whole  organ  through  the  median  line  will  be 
found  most  instructive  (Fig.  37).  The  student  should  also  (on  a 
fresh  brain,  or  one  hardened  in  bichromate  of  potash  or  ammonia  to 
save  the  contrast  of  color  between  white  and  gray  matter)  make 
transverse  sections  through  the  nates  and  crura,  and  through  the 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  THE  BRAIN.  89 


Fig.  37. — Median  section  of  human  brain  below  the  hemispheres.  Tli,  thalamus; 
Cg,  corpora  quadrigemina;  Vin,  third  ventricle;  Com,  middle  commissure; 
F,  columns  of  fornix;  Inf.  infundihulum;  Op.n,  optic  nerve;  Pit,  pituitary 
body;  Av,  arbor  vitse.    (After  Obersteiner). 


90 


PSYCnOLOOT. 


hemispheres  just  in  front  of  the  corpus  albicans.  The  latter  section 
shows  on  each  side  the  nucleus  lentimihiris  of  the  corpus  striatum,  and 
also  the  inner  capsule  (see  Fig.  38,  Nl,  and  Ic). 


Fig.  38.— Transverse  section  through  right  hemisphere  (after  Gegenbaur).  Cc, 
corpus  callosum;  Pf,  pillars  of  fornix;  Ic,  internal  capsule;  V,  third  ventricle; 
Nl,  nucleus  lenticularis. 

When  all  is  said  and  done,  the  fact  remains  that,  for  the 
beginner,  the  understanding  of  the  brain's  structure  is  not 
an  easy  thing.  It  must  be  gone  over  and  forgotten  and 
learned  again  many  times  before  it  is  definitively  assimi- 
lated by  the  mind.  But  patience  and  repetition,  here  as 
elsewhere,  will  bear  their  perfect  fruit. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  THE  BRAIN. 

General  Idea  of  Nervous  Function. — If  I  begin  chopping 
the  foot  of  a  tree,  its  branches  are  unmoved  by  my  act,  and 
its  leaves  murmur  as  peacefully  as  ever  in  the  wind.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  I  do  violence  to  the  foot  of  a  fellow-man,  the 
rest  of  his  body  instantly  responds  to  the  aggression  by 
movements  of  alarm  or  defence.  The  reason  of  this  differ- 
ence is  that  the  man  has  a  nervous  system,  whilst  the  tree 
has  none;  and  the  function 'of  the  nervous  system  is  to 
bring  each  part  into  harmonious  cooperation  with  every 
other.  The  afferent  nerves,  when  excited  by  some  physical 
irritant,  be  this  as  gross  in  its  mode  of  operation  as  a  chop- 
ping axe  or  as  subtle  as  the  waves  of  light,  conveys  the 
excitement  to  the  nervous  centres.  The  commotion  set  up 
in  the  centres  does  not  stop  there,  but  discharges  through 
the  efferent  nerves,  exciting  movements  which  vary  with 
the  animal  and  with  the  irritant  applied.  These  acts  of 
response  have  usually  the  common  character  of  being  of 
service.  They  ward  off  the  noxious  stimulus  and  support 
the  beneficial  one;  whilst  if,  in  itself  indifferent,  the  stim- 
ulus be  a  sign  of  some  distant  circumstance  of  practical 
importance,  the  animal's  acts  are  addressed  to  this  circum- 
stance so  as  to  avoid  its  perils  or  secure  its  benefits,  as  the 
case  may  be.  To  take  a  common  example,  if  I  hear  the 
conductor  calling  'All  aboard  ! '  as  I  enter  the  station,  my 
heart  first  stops,  then  palpitates,  and  my  legs  respond  to 
the  air-waves  falling  cm  my  tympanum  by  quickening 
their  movements.  If  I  stumble  as  I  run,  the  sensation  of 
falling  provokes  a  movement  of  the  hands  towards  the 
direction  of  the  fall,  the  effect  of  which  is  to  shield  the 


92  PSYCHOLOGY".' 

body  from  too  sudden  a  shock.  If  a  cinder  enter  my  eye, 
its  lids  close  forcibly  and  a  copious  flow  of  tears  tends  to 
wash  it  out. 

These  three  responses  to  a  sensational  stimulus  differ, 
however,  in  many  respects.  The  closure  of  the  eye  and  the 
lachrymation  are  quite  involuntary,  and  so  is  the  distur- 
bance of  the  heart.  Such  involuntary  responses  we  know 
as  '  reflex '  acts.  The  motion  of  the  arms  to  break  the 
shock  of  falling  may  also  be  called  reflex,  since  it  occurs 
too  quickly  to  be  deliberately  intended.  It  is,  at  any  rate, 
less  automatic  than  the  previous  acts,  for  a  man  might  by 
conscious  effort  learn  to  perform  it  more  skilfully,  or  even 
to  suppress  it  altogether.  Actions  of  this  kind,  into  which 
instinct  and  volition  enter  upon  equal  terms,  have  been 
called  'semi-reflex.'  The  act  of  running  towards  the  train, 
on  the  other  hand,  has  no  instinctive  element  about  it.  It 
is  purely  the  result  of  education,  and  is  preceded  by  a  con- 
sciousness of  the  purpose  to  be  attained  and  a  distinct 
mandate  of  the  will.  It  is  a  'voluntary  act.'  Thus  the 
animal's  reflex  and  voluntary  performances  shade  into 
each  other  gradually,  being  connected  by  acts  which  may 
often  occur  automatically,  but  may  also  be  modified  by 
conscious  intelligence. 

The  Frog's  Nerve-centres. — Let  us  now  look  a  little  more 
closely  at  what  goes  on. 

The  best  way  to  enter  the  subject  will  be  to  take  a  lower 
creature,  like  a  frog,  and  study  by  the  vivisectional  method 
the  functions  of  his  different  nerve-centres.  The  frog's 
nerve-centres  are  figured  in  the  diagram  over  the  page, 
which  needs  no  further  explanation.  I  shall  first  proceed 
to  state  what  happens  when  various  amounts  of  the  ante- 
rior parts  are  removed,  in  different  frogs,  in  the  way  in 
which  an  ordinary  student  removes  them — that  is,  with 
no  extreme  precautions  as  to  the  purity  of  the  operation. 

If,  then,  we  reduce  the  frog's  nervous  system  to  the 
spinal  cord  alone,  by  making  a  section  behind  the  base  of 
the  skull,  between  the  spinal  cord  and  the  medulla  ob- 


THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  THE  BRAIN 


93 


X"0  Th 


iongata,  thereby  cutting  off  the  brain  from  all  connection 
with  the  rest  of  the  body,  the  frog  will 
still  continue  to  live,  but  with  a  very  pe- 
culiarly modified  activity.  It  ceases  to 
breathe  or  swallow;  it  lies  flat  on  its 
oelly,  and  does  not,  like  a  normal  frog,  sit 
up  on  its  forepaws,  though  its  hind-legs 
are  kept,  as  usual,  folded  against  its  body 
and  immediately  resume  this  position  if 
drawn  out.  If  thrown  on  its  back  it  lies 
'jhere  quietly,  without  turning  over  like 
a  normal  frog.  Locomotion  and  voice 
seem  entirely  abolished.  If  we  suspend  it 
by  the  nose,  and  irritate  different  portions 
of  its  skin  by  acid,  it  performs  a  set  of  fig.  39.— c,  h,  cere- 
remarkable  ' defensive '  movements  calcu-  o^rA^Tpt^tha- 
lated  to  wipe  away  the  irritant.  Thus,  if  ggjj  §,t  Lcei°ePbei- 
ohe  breast  be  touched,  both  fore-paws  will    lu"i;  'M,  °-  K^duiia 

f""J"  IT-".*      oblongata;  S  C,  spi- 

rub  it  vigorously;  if  we  touch  the  outer  nal  cord- 
side  of  the  elbow,  the  hind-foot  of  the  same  side  will  rise 
directly  to  the  spot  and  wipe  it.  The  back  of  the  foot  will 
rub  the  knee  if  that  be  attacked,  whilst  if  the  foot  be  cut 
away,  the  stump  will  make  ineffectual  movements,  and  then, 
in  many  frogs,  a  pause  will  come,  as  if  for  deliberation, 
succeeded  by  a  rapid  passage  of  the  opposite  unmutilated 
foot  to  the  acidulated  spot. 

The  most  striking  character  of  all  these  movements, 
after  their  teleological  appropriateness,  is  their  precision. 
They  vary,  in  sensitive  frogs  and  with  a  proper  amount  of 
irritation,  so  little  as  almost  to  resemble  in  their  machine- 
like regularity  the  performances  of  a  jumping-jack,  whose 
legs  must  twitch  whenever  you  pull  the  string.  The  spinal 
cord  of  the  frog  thus  contains  arrangements  of  cells  and 
fibres  fitted  to  convert  skin-irritations  into  movements  of 
defence.  We  may  call  it  the  centre  for  defensive  movements 
in  this  animal.  We  may  indeed  go  farther  than  this,  and 
by  cutting  the  spinal  cord  in  various  places  find  that  its 


94  PSYCHOLOGY. 

separate  segments  are  independent  mechanisms,  for  appro- 
priate activities  of  the  head  and  of  the  arms  and  legs  re- 
spectively. The  segment  governing  the  arms  is  especially 
active,  in  male  frogs,  in  the  breeding  season;  and  these 
members  alone,  with  the  breast  and  back  appertaining  to 
them,  and  everything  else  cut  away,  will  actively  grasp  ;i 
finger  placed  between  them  and  remain  hanging  to  it  for 
a  considerable  time. 

Similarly  of  the  medulla  oblongata,  optic  lobes,  and  other 
centres  between  the  spinal  cord  and  the  hemispheres  of  the 
frog.     Each  of  them  is  proved  by  experiment  to  contain  a 
mechanism  for  the  accurate  execution,  in  response  to  defi- 
nite stimuli,  of  certain  special  acts.    Thus  with  the  medulla 
the  animal  swallows;  with  the  medulla  and  cerebellum  to- 
gether he  jumps,  swims,  and  turns  over  from  his  back; 
with  his  optic  lobes  he  croaks  when  pinched ;  etc.     A  frog 
wliicli  has  lost  his  cerebral  hemispheres  alone  is  by  an  un- 
practised  observer  indistinguishable  from  a  normal  animal. 
Not  only  is  he  capable,  on  proper  instigation,  of  all  tho 
acts  already  mentioned,  but  he  guides  himself  by  sight,  so 
that  if  an  obstacle  be  set  up  between  him  and  the  light, 
and  he  be  forced  to  move  forward,  he  either  jumps  over  it 
or  swerves  to  one  side.     He  manifests  the  sexual  instinct 
at  the  proper  seasons,  and  discriminates  between  male  and 
female  individuals  of  his  own  species.     He  is,  in  short,  so 
similar  in  every  respect  to  a  normal  frog  that  it  would  take 
a  person  very  familiar  with  these  animals  to  suspect  any- 
thing wrong  or  wanting  about  him;  but  even  then  such  a 
person  would  soon  remark  the  almost  entire  absence  of 
spontaneous  motion — that  is,  motion  unprovoked  by  any 
present  incitation  of  sense.     The  continued  movements  of 
swimming,  performed  by  the  creature  in  the  water,  seem 
to  be  the  fatal  result  of  the  contact  of  that  fluid  with  its 
skin.     They  caase  when  a  stick,  for  example,  touches  his 
hands.    This  is  a  sensible  irritant  towards  which  the*  feet 
are  automatically  drawn  by  reflex  action,  and  on  which  the 
animal  remains  sitting.    He  manifests  no  hunger,  and  will 


TEE  FUNCTIONS  OF  TEE  BRAIN.  95 

suffer  a  fly  to  crawl  over  bis  nose  unsnapped  at.  Fear,  too, 
seems  to  have  deserted  him.  In  a  word,  he  is  an  extremely 
complex  machine  whose  actions,  so  far  as  they  go,  tend  to 
self-preservation;  but  still  a  machine,  in  this  sense — that 
it  seems  to  contain  no  incalculable  element.  By  applying 
the  right  sensory  stimulus  to  him  we  are  almost  as  certain 
of  getting  a  fixed  response  as  an  organist  is  of  hearing  a 
certain  tone  when  he  pulls  out  a  certain  stop. 

But  now  if  to  the  loiver  centres  we  add  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres, or  if,  in  other  words,  we  make  an  intact  animal 
the  subject  of  our  observations,  all  this  is  changed.  In 
addition  to  the  previous  responses  to  present  incitements 
of  sense,  our  frog  now  goes  through  long  and  complex  acts 
of  locomotion  spontaneously,  or  as  if  moved  by  what  in 
ourselves  we  should  call  an  idea.  His  reactions  to  outward 
stimuli  vary  their  form,  too.  Instead  of  making  simple 
defensive  movements  with  his  hind-legs,  like  a  headless 
frog,  if  touched ;  or  of  giving  one  or  two  leaps  and  then  sit- 
ting still  like  a  hemisphereless  one,  he  makes  persistent 
and  varied  efforts  of  escape,  as  if,  not  the  mere  contact  of 
the  physiologist's  hand,  but  the  notion  of  danger  suggested 
by  it  were  now  his  spur.  Led  by  the  feeling  of  hunger, 
too,  he  goes  in  search  of  insects,  fish,  or  smaller  frogs,  and 
varies  his  procedure  with  each  species  of  victim.  The 
physiologist  cannot  by  manipulating  him  elicit  croaking, 
crawling  up  a  board,  swimming  or  stopping,  at  will.  His 
conduct  has  become  incalculable — we  can  no  longer  fore- 
tell it  exactly.  Effort  to  escape  is  his  dominant  reaction, 
but  he  may  do  anything  else,  even  swell  up  and  become 
perfectly  passive  in  our  hands. 

'  Such  are  the  phenomena  commonly  observed,  and  such 
the  impressions  which  one  naturally  receives.  Certain 
general  conclusions  follow  irresistibly  First  of  all  the 
following: 

The  acts  of  all  the  centres  involve  the  use  of  the  same 
muscles.     When  a  brainless  frog's  hind-leg  wipes  the  acid, 


96  PSYCHOLOGY. 

he  calls  into  play  all  the  leg-muscles  which  a  frog  with  his 
full  medulla  oblongata  and  cerebellum  uses  when  he  turns 
from  his  back  to  his  belly.  Their  contractions  are,  how- 
ever, combined  differently  in  the  two  cases,  so  that  the 
results  vary  widely.  We  must  consequently  conclude  that 
specific  arrangements  of  cells  and  fibres  exist  in  the  cord 
for  wiping,  in  the  medulla  for  turning  over,  etc.  Simi- 
larly they  exist  in  the  thalami  for  jumping  over  seen  ob- 
stacles and  for  balancing  the  moved  body;  in  the  optic 
lobes  for  creeping  backwards,  or  what  not.  But  in  the 
hemispheres,  since  the  presence  of  these  organs  brings  no 
neiu  elementary  form  of  movement  with  it,  but  only  deter- 
mines differently  the  occasions  on  which  the  movements 
shall  occur,  making  the  usual  stimuli  less  fatal  and  ma- 
chine-like, we  need  suppose  no  such  machinery  directly 
coordinative  of  muscular  contractions  to  exist.  We  may 
rather  assume,  when  the  mandate  for  a  wiping-movement 
is  sent  forth  by  the  hemispheres,  that  a  current  goes  straight 
to  the  wiping-arrangement  in  the  spinal  cord,  exciting  this 
arrangement  as  a  whole.  Similarly,  if  an  intact  frog  wishes 
to  jump,  all  he  need  do  is  to  excite  from  the  hemispheres 
the  jumping-centre  in  the  thalami  or  wherever  it  may  be, 
and  the  latter  will  provide  for  the  details  of  the  execution. 
It  is  like  a  general  ordering  a  colonel  to  make  a  certain 
movement,  but  not  telling  him  how  it  shall  be  done. 

The  same  muscle,  then,  is  repeatedly  represented  at  dif- 
ferent heights;  and  at  each  it  enters  into  a  different  com- 
bination with  other -muscles  to  cooperate  in  some  special 
form  of  concerted  movement.  At  each  height  the  move- 
ment is  discharged  by  some  particular  form  of  sensorial 
stimulus,  whilst  the  stimuli  which  discharge  the  hemi- 
spheres would  seem  not  so  much  to  be  elementary  sorts 
of  sensation,  as  groups  of  sensations  forming  determinate 
objects  or  things. 

The  Pigeon's  Lower  Centres. — The  results  are  just  the 
same  if,  instead  of  a  frog,  we  take  a  pigeon,  cut  out  his 
hemispheres  carefully  and  wait  till  he  recovers  from  the 


THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  THE  BRAIN.  97 

operation.  There  is  not  a  movement  natural  to  him  which 
this  brainless  bird  cannot  execute ;  he  seems,  too,  after  some 
days  to  execute  movements  from  some  inner  irritation,  for 
he  moves  spontaneously.  But  his  emotions  and  instincts 
exist  no  longer.     In  Schrader's  striking  words : 

"  The  hemisphereless  animal  moves  in  a  world  of  bodies 
which  .  .  .  are  all  of  equal  value  for  him.  .  .  .  He  is,  to 
use  Goltz's  apt  expression,  impersonal.  .  .  .  Every  object 
is  for  him  only  a  space-occupying  mass,  he  turns  out  of  his 
path  for  an  ordinary  pigeon  no  otherwise  than  for  a  stone. 
He  may  try  to  climb  over  both.  All  authors  agree  that 
they  never  found  any  difference,  whether  it  was  an  inani- 
mate body,  a  cat,  a  dog,  or  a  bird  of  prey  which  came  in 
their  pigeon's  way.  The  creature  knows  neither  friends 
nor  enemies,  in  the  thickest  company  it  lives  like  a  hermit. 
The  languishing  cooing  of  the  male  awakens  no  more  im- 
pression than  the  rattling  of  the  peas,  or  the  call-whistle 
which  in  the  days  before  the  injury  used  to  make  the  birds 
hasten  to  be  fed.  Quite  as  little  as  the  earlier  observers 
have  I  seen  hemisphereless  she-birds  answer  the  courting 
of  the  male.  A  hemisphereless  male  will  coo  all  day 
long  and  show  distinct  signs  of  sexual  excitement,  but  his 
activity  is  without  any  object,  it  is  entirely  indifferent  to 
him  whether  the  she-bird  be  there  or  not.  If  one  is  placed 
near  him,  he  leaves  her  unnoticed.  ...  As  the  male  pays 
no  attention  to  the  female,  so  she  pays  none  to  her  young 
The  brood  may  follow  the  mother  ceaselessly  calling  for 
food,  but  they  might  as  well  ask  it  from  a  stone.  .  .  .  The 
hemisphereless  pigeon  is  in  the  highest  degree  tame,  and 
tears  man  as  little  as  cat  or  bird  of  prey." 

General  Notion  of  Hemispheres. — All  these  facts  lead  us, 
when  we  try  to  formulate  them  broadly,  to  some  such  con- 
ception as  this:  The  lower  centres  act  from  present  se?isa- 
lional  stimuli  alone;  the  hemispheres  act  from  considera- 
tions, the  sensations  wnich  they  may  receive  serving  only 
Sre  suggesters  of  these.  But  what  are  considerations  but 
ixpectations,  in  the  fancy,  of  sensations  which  will  be  felt 
4<ne  way  or  another  according  as  action  takes  this  course  or 


98  PSYCHO  LOOT. 

that  ?  If  I  stop  aside  on  seeing  a  rattlesnake,  from  consid- 
ering how  dangerous  an  animal  he  is,  the  mental  materials 
which  constitute  my  prudential  reflection  are  images  more 
or  less  vivid  of  the  movement  of  his  head,  of  a  sudden  pain 
in  my  leg,  of  a  state  of  terror,  a  swelling  of  the  limb,  a 
chill,  delirium,  death,  etc.,  etc.,  and  the  ruin  of  my  hopes. 
But  all  these  images  are  constructed  out  of  my  past  experi- 
snces.  They  are  reproductions  of  what  I  have  felt  or  wit- 
nessed- They  are,  in  short,  remote  sensations;  and  the 
main  difference  between  the  hemisphereless  animal  and  the 
whole  one  may  be  concisely  expressed  by  saying  that  the 
one  obeys  absent,  the  other  only  present,  objects. 

The  hemispheres  would  then  seem  to  be  the  chief  seat  of 
memory.  Vestiges  of  past  experience  must  in  some  way  be 
stored  up  in  them,  and  must,  Avhen  aroused  by  present 
stimuli,  first  appear  as  representations  of  distant  goods  and 
evils;  and  then  must  discharge  into  the  appropriate  motor 
channels  for  warding  off  the  evil  and  securing  the  benefits 
of  the  good.  If  we  liken  the  nervous  currents  to  electric 
currents,  we  can  compare  the  nervous  system,  C,  beloAV  the 
hemispheres  to  a  direct  circuit  from  sense-organ  to  muscle 
along  the  line  8  ...C...  Mof  Fig.  40).  The  hemisphere,  H, 
adds  the  long  circuit  or  loop-line  through  which  the  current 
may  pass  when  for  any  reason  the  direct  line  is  not  used. 

Thus,  a  tired  wayfarer  on  a  hot  day  throws  himself  on  the 
damp  earth  beneath  a  majjle-tree.  The  sensations  of  deli- 
cious rest  and  coolness  pouring 
themselves  through  the  direct 
line  would  naturally  discharge 
into  the  muscles  of  complete  ex- 
tension :  he  would  abandon  him- 
self to  the  dangerous  repose. 
But  the  loop-line  being  open, 
part  of  the  current  is  drafted 
along  it,  and  awakens  rheu- 
matic or  catarrhal  reminiscences, 
fig.  40.  which  prevail  over  the  instiga- 

tions of  sense,  and  make  the  man  arise  and  pursue  his  way 


THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  TEE  BRAIN.  99 

to  where  he  may  enjoy  his  rest  more  safely.  Presently  we 
shall  examine  the  manner  in  which  the  hemispheric  loop- 
line  may  be  supposed  to  serve  as  a  reservoir  for  such  remi- 
niscences as  these.  Meanwhile  I  will  ask  the  reader  to 
notice  some  corollaries  of  its  being  such  a  reservoir. 

First,  no  animal  without  it  can  deliberate,  pause,  post- . 
pone,  nicely  weigh  one  motive  against  another,  or  compare. 
Prudence,  in  a  word,  is  for  such  a  creature  an  impossible 
virtue.  Accordingly  we  see  that  nature  removes  those  func- 
tions in  the  exercise  of  which  prudence  is  a  virtue  from  the 
lower  centres  and  hands  them  over  to  the  cerebrum.  Wher- 
ever a  creature  has  to  deal  with  complex  features  of  the 
environment,  prudence  is  a  virtue.  The  higher  animals 
have  so  to  deal;  and  the  more  complex  the  features,  the 
higher  we  call  the  animals.  The  fewer  of  his  acts,  then, 
can  such  an  animal  perform  without  the  help  of  the  organs 
in  question.  In  the  frog  many  acts  devolve  wholly  on  the 
lower  centres;  in  the  bird  fewer;  in  the  rodent  fewer  still; 
in  the  dog  very  few  indeed ;  and  in  apes  and  men  hardly 
any  at  all. 

The  advantages  of  this  are  obvious.  Take  the  prehen- 
sion of  food  as  an  example  and  suppose  it  to  be  a  reflex 
performance  of  the  lower  centres.  The  animal  will  be  con- 
demned fatally  and  irresistibly  to  snap  at  it  whenever  pre- 
sented, no  matter  what  the  circumstances  may  be ;  he  can 
no  more  disobey  this  prompting  than  water  can  refuse  to 
boil  when  a  fire  is  kindled  under  the  pot.  His  life  will 
again  and  again  pay  the  forfeit  of  his  gluttony.  Exposure 
to  retaliation,  to  other  enemies,  to  traps,  to  poisons,  to  the 
dangers  of  repletion,  must  be  regular  parts  of  his  existence. 
His  lack  of  all  thought  by  which  to  weigh  the  danger  against 
the  attractiveness  of  the  bait,  and  of  all  volition  to  remain 
hungry  a  little  while  longer,  is  the  direct  measure  of  his 
lowness  in  the  mental  scale.  And  those  fishes  which,  like 
our  dinners  and  sculpins,  are  no  sooner  thrown  back  from 
the  hook  into  the  water  than  they  automatically  seize  the 
hook  again,  would  soon  expiate  the  degradation  of  their 


100  PSYCHOLOGY. 

intelligence  by  the  extinction  of  their  type,  did  not  their 
extraordinary  fecundity  atone  for  their  imprudence.  Ap- 
petite and  the  acts  it  prompts  have  consequently  become 
in  all  higher  vertebrates  functions  of  the  cerebrum.  They 
disappear  when  the  physiologist's  knife  has  left  the  sub- 
ordinate centres  alone  in  place.  The  brainless  pigeon  will 
starve  though  left  on  a  corn-heap. 

Take  again  the  sexual  function.  In  birds  this  devolves 
exclusively  upon  the  hemispheres.  When  these  are  shorn 
away  the  pigeon  pays  no  attention  to  the  billings  and  coo- 
ings  of  its  mate.  It  is  the  same,  according  to  Goltz,  with 
male  dogs  who  have  suffered  large  losses  of  cerebral  tissue. 
Those  who  have  read  Darwin's  Descent  of  Man  will  recol- 
lect what  an  importance  this  author  ascribes  to  the  agency 
of  sexual  selection  in  the  amelioration  of  the  breeds  of 
birds.  The  females  are  naturally  coy,  and  their  coyness 
must  be  overcome  by  the  exhibition  of  the  gorgeous  plu- 
mage, and  various  accomplishments  in  the  way  of  strutting 
and  fighting,  of  the  males.  In  frogs  and  toads,  on  the 
other  hand,  where  (as  we  saw  on  page  94)  the  sexual  in- 
stinct devolves  upon  the  lower  centres,  we  find  a  machine- 
like obedience  to  the  present  incitements  of  sense,  and  an 
almost  total  exclusion  of  the  power  of  choice.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  every  spring  an  immense  waste  jf  batrachian 
life,  involving  numbers  of  adult  animals  and  innumerable 
eggs,  takes  place  from  no  other  cause  than  the  blind  char- 
acter of  the  sexual  impulse  in  these  creatures. 

No  one  need  be  told  how  dependent  all  human  social 
elevation  is  upon  the  prevalence  of  chastity.  Hardly  any 
factor  measures  more  than  this  the  difference  between 
civilization  and  barbarism.  Physiologically  interpreted, 
chastity  means  nothing  more  than  the  fact  that  present 
solicitations  of  sense  are  overpowered  by  suggestions  of 
aesthetic  and  moral  fitness  which  the  circumstances  awaken 
in  the  cerebrum;  and  that  upon  the  inhibitory  or  permis- 
Bive  influence  of  these  alone  action  directly  depends. 

Within  the  psychic  life  due  to  the  cerebrum  itself  the 


THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  TEE  BRAIN.  101 

same  general  distinction  obtains,  between  considerations  of 
the  more  immediate  and  considerations  of  the  more  remote. 
In  all  ages  the  man  whose  determinations  are  swayed  by 
reference  to  the  most  distant  ends  has  been  held  to  possess 
the  highest  intelligence.  The  tramp  who  lives  from  hour 
to  hour;  the  bohemian  whose  engagements  are  from  day 
to  day;  the  bachelor  who  builds  but  for  a  single  life;  the 
father  who  acts  for  another  generation;  the  patriot  who 
thinks  of  a  whole  community  and  many  generations;  and, 
finally,  the  philosopher  and  saint  whose  cares  are  for  hu- 
manity and  for  eternity, — these  range  themselves  in  an 
unbroken  hierarchy,  wherein  each  successive  grade  results 
from  an  increased  manifestation  of  the  special  form  of 
action  by  which  the  cerebral  centres  are  distinguished 
from  all  below  them. 

The  Automaton-Theory. — In  the  '  loop-line '  along  which 
the  memories  and  ideas  of  the  distant  are  supposed  to  lie, 
the  action,  so  far  as  it  is  a  physical  process,  must  be  inter- 
preted after  the  type  of  the  action  in  the  lower  centres. 
If  regarded  here  as  a  reflex  process,  it  must  be  reflex  there 
as  well  The  current  in  both  places  runs  out  into  the 
muscles  only  after  it  has  first  run  in;  but  whilst  the  path 
by  which  it  runs  out  is  determined  in  the  lower  centres  by 
reflections  few  and  fixed  amongst  the  cell-arrangements,  in 
the  hemispheres  the  reflections  are  many  and  instable. 
This,  it  will  be  seen,  is  only  a  difference  of  degree  and  not 
of  kind,  and  does  not  change  the  reflex  type.  The  con- 
ception of  all  action  as  conforming  to  this  type  is  the  fun- 
damental conception  of  modern  nerve-physiology.  This 
conception,  now,  has  led  to  two  quite  opposite  theories 
about  the  relation  to  consciousness  of  the  nervous  func- 
tions. Some  authors,  finding  that  the  higher  voluntary 
functions  seem  to  require  the  guidance  of  feeling,  conclude 
that  over  the  lowest  reflexes  some  such  feeling  also  pre- 
sides, though  it  may  be  a  feeling  connected  with  the  spinal 
cord,  of  which  the  higher  conscious  self  connected  with 
the  hemispheres  remains  unconscious.    Others,  finding  that 


102  PSYCHOLOGY. 

reflex  and  semi-automatic  acts  may,  notwithstanding  their 
appropriateness,  take  place  with  an  unconsciousness  ap- 
parently complete,  fly  to  the  opposite  extreme  and  maintain 
that  the  appropriateness  even  of  the  higher  voluntary 
actions  connected  with  the  hemispheres  owes  nothing  to 
the  fact  that  consciousness  attends  them.  They  are, 
according  to  these  writers,  results  of  physiological  mechan- 
ism pure  and  simple. 

To  comprehend  completely  this  latter  doctrine  one 
should  apply  it  to  examples.  The  movements  of  our 
tongues  and  pens,  the  flashings  of  our  eyes  in  conversa- 
tion, are  of  course  events  of  a  physiological  order,  and  as 
such  their  causal  antecedents  may  be  exclusively  mechan- 
ical. If  we  knew  thoroughly  the  nervous  system  of  Shake- 
speare, and  as  thoroughly  all  his  environing  conditions,  we 
should  be  able,  according  to  the  theory  of  automatism, 
to  show  why  at  a  given  period  of  his  life  his  hand  came  to 
trace  on  certain  sheets  cf  paper  those  crabbed  little  black 
marks  which  we  for  shortness'  sake  call  the  manuscript  oi 
Hamlet.  We  should  understand  the  rationale  of  every 
erasure  and  alteration  therein,  and  we  should  understand 
all  this  without  in  the  slightest  degree  acknowledging  the 
existence  of  the  thoughts  in  Shakespeare's  mind.  The 
words  and  sentences  would  be  taken,  not  as  signs  of  any- 
thing beyond  themselves,  but  as  little  outward  facts,  pure 
and  simple.  In  like  manner,  the  automaton-theory  affirms, 
we  might  exhaustively  write  the  biography  of  those  two 
hundred  pounds,  more  or  less,  of  warmish  albuminoid  matter 
called  Martin  Luther,  without  ever  implying  that  it  felt. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  nothing  in  all  this  could  pre- 
vent us  from  giving  an  equally  complete  account  of  either 
Luther's  or  Shakespeare's  spiritual  history,  an  account  in 
which  every  gleam  of  thought  and  emotion  should  find  its 
place.  The  mind-history  would  run  alongside  of  the  body- 
history  of  each  man,  and  each  point  in  the  one  would  cor- 
respond to,  but  not  react  upon,  a  point  in  the  other.  So 
the  melody  floats  from  the  harp-string,  but  neither  checks 


THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  THE  BRAIN.  103 

nor  quickens  its  vibrations;  so  the  shadow  runs  alongside 
the  pedestrian,  but  in  no  way  influences  his  steps. 

As  a  mere  conception,  and  so  long  as  we  confine  our  view 
to  the  nervous  centres  themselves,  few  things  are  more 
seductive  than  this  radically  mechanical  theory  of  their 
action.  And  yet  our  consciousness  is  there,  and  has  in  all 
probability  been  evolved,  like  all  othei  functions,  for  a 
use — it  is  to  the  highest  degree  improbab  e  a  priori  that 
it  should  have  no  use.  Its  use  seems  to  be  that  of  selec- 
tion ;  but  to  select,  it  must  be  efficacious.  States  of  con- 
sciousness which  feel  right  are  held  fast  to;  those  which 
feel  wrong  are  checked.  If  the  '  holding '  and  the  '  check- 
ing '  of  the  conscious  states  severally  mean  also  the  effica- 
cious reinforcing  or  inhibiting  of  the  correlated  neural 
processes,  then  it  would  seem  as  if  the  presence  of  the 
states  of  mind  might  help  to  steer  the  nervous  system 
and  keep  it  in  the  path  which  to  the  consciousness 
seemed  best.  Now  on  the  average  what  seems  best  to  con- 
sciousness is  really  best  for  the  creature.  It  is  a  well- 
known  fact  that  pleasures  are  generally  associated  with 
beneficial,  pains  with  detrimental,  experiences.  All  the 
fundamental  vital  processes  illustrate  this  law.  Starvation; 
suffocation;  privation  of  food,  drink,  and  sleep;  work  when 
exhausted;  burns,  wounds,  inflammation;  the  effects  of 
poison,  are  as  disagreeable  as  filling  the  hungry  stomach, 
enjoying  rest  and  sleep  after  fatigue,  exercise  after  rest, 
and  a  sound  skin  and  unbroken  bones  at  all  times,  are 
pleasant.  Mr.  Spencer  and  others  have  suggested  that 
these  coincidences  are  due,  not  to  any  preestablished  har- 
mony, but  to  the  mere  action  of  natural  selection,  which 
would  certainly  kill  off  in  the  long-run  any  breed  of  crea- 
tures to  whom  the  fundamentally  noxious  experience 
seemed  enjoyable.  An  animal  that  should  take  pleasure 
in  a  feeling  of  suffocation  would,  if  that  pleasure  were  effi- 
cacious enough  to  make  him  keep  his  head  under  water, 
enjoy  a  longevity  of  four  or  five  minutes.  But  if  conscious 
pleasure  does  not  reinforce,  and  conscious  pain  does  not 


104  PSYCHO  LOO  7. 

inhibit,  anything,  one  does  not  see  (without  some  such  a 
priori  rational  harmony  as  would  be  scouted  by  the  'scien- 
tific' champions  of  the  automaton-theory)  why  the  most 
noxious  acts,  such  as  burning,  might  not  with  perfect  im- 
punity give  thrills  of  delight,  and  the  most  necessary  ones, 
such  as  breathing,  cause  agony.  The  only  considerable 
attempt  that  has  been  made  to  explain  the  distribution  of 
our  feelings  is  that  of  Mr.  Grant  Allen  in  his  suggestive 
little  work,  Physiological  ^Esthetics;  and  his  reasoning  is 
based  exclusively  on  that  causal  efficacy  of  pleasures  and 
pains  which  the  partisan  "•  of  pure  automatism  so  stren- 
uously deny. 

Probability  and  circumstantial  evidence  thus  run  dead 
against  the  theory  that  our  actions  are  purely  mechanical 
in  their  causation.  From  the  point  of  view  of  descriptive 
Psychology  (even  though  we  be  bound  to  assume,  as  on  p.  6, 
that  all  our  feelings  have  brain-processes  for  their  condi- 
tion of  existence,  and  can  be  remotely  traced  in  every  in- 
stance to  currents  coming  from  the  outer  world)  we  have 
no  clear  reason  to  doubt  that  the  feelings  may  react  so  as 
to  further  or  to  dampen  the  processes  to  which  they  are 
due.  I  shall  therefore  not  hesitate  in  the  course  of  this 
book  to  use  the  language  of  common-sense.  I  shall  talk  as 
if  consciousness  kept  actively  pressing  the  ner  re-centres  in 
the  direction  of  its  own  ends,  and  was  no  mere  impotent 
and  paralytic  spectator  of  life's  game. 

The  Localization  of  Functions  in  the  Hemispheres. — The 
hemispheres,  we  lately  said,  must  be  the  organ  of  memory, 
and  in  some  way  retain  vestiges  of  former  currents,  by 
means  of  which  mental  considerations  drawn  from  the  past 
may  be  aroused  before  action  takes  place.  The  vivisec- 
tions of  physiologists  and  the  observations  of  physicians 
have  of  late  years  given  a  concrete  confirmation  to  this 
notion  which  the  first  rough  appearances  suggest.  The 
various  convolutions  have  had  special  functions  assigned  to 
them  in  relation  to  this  and  that  sense-organ,  as  well  as  to 
this  or  that  portion  of  the  muscular  system,    This  book  is 


TEE  FUNCTIONS  OF  TEE  BRAIN.  105 

no  place  for  going  over  the  evidence  in  detail,  so  I  will 
simply  indicate  the  conclusions  which  are  most  probable 
at  the  date  of  writing. 

Mental  and  Cerebral  Elements. — In  the  first  place,  there 
is  a  very  neat  parallelism  between  the  analysis  of  brain- 
functions  by  the  physiologists  and  that  of  mental  func- 
tions by  the  '  analytic '  psychologists. 

The  phrenological  brain-doctrine  divided  the  brain  into 
'  organs/  each  of  which  stood  for  the  man  in  a  certain  par- 
tial attitude.  The  organ  of '  Philoprogenitiveness,'  with  its 
concomitant  consciousness,  is  an  entire  man  so  far  as  he 
loves  children,  that  of  '  Eeverence '  is  an  entire  man  wor- 
shipping, etc.  The  spiritualistic  psychology,  in  turn, 
divided  the  Mind  into  *  faculties,'  which  were  also  entire 
mental  men  in  certain  limited  attitudes.  But  'faculties' 
are  not  mental  elements  any  more  than  '  organs '  are  brain- 
elements.  Analysis  breaks  both  into  more  elementary 
constituents. 

Brain  and  mind  alike  consist  of  simple  elements,  sen- 
sory and  motor.  "  All  nervous  centres,"  says  Dr.  Hugh- 
lings  Jackson,  "  from  the  lowest  to  the  very  highest  (the 
substrata  of  consciousness),  are  made  up  of  nothing  else 
than  nervous  arrangements,  representing  impressions  and 
movements.  ...  I  do  not  see  of  what  other  materials  the 
brain  can  be  made."  Meynert  represents  the  matter  simi- 
larly when  he  calls  the  cortex  of  the  hemispheres  the  sur- 
face of  projection  for  every  muscle  and  every  sensitive 
point  of  the  body.  The  muscles  and  the  sensitive  points 
are  represented  each  by  a  cortical  point,  and  the  Brain  is 
little  more  than  the  sum  of  all  these  cortical  points,  to 
which,  on  the  mental  side,  as  many  sensations  and  ideas 
correspond.  The  sensations  and  ideas  of  sensation  and  ol 
motion  are,  in  turn,  the  elements  out  of  which  the  Mind  is 
built  according  to  the  analytic  school  of  psychology.  The 
relations  between  objects  are  explained  by  'associations' 
between  the  ideas;  and  the  emotional  and  instinctive  ten- 
dencies, by  associations  between   ideas  and   movements 


106 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


The  same  diagram  can  symbolize  both  the  inner  and  the 
outer  world ;  dots  or  circles  standing  indifferently  for  cells 
or  ideas,  and  lines  joining  them,  for  fibres  or  associations. 
The  associationist  doctrine  of  '  ideas '  may  be  doubted  to 
be  a  literal  expression  of  the  truth,  but  it  probably  will 
always  retain  a  didactic  usefulness.  At  all  events,  it  is 
interesting  to  see  how  well  physiological  analysis  plays  into 
its  hands.     To  proceed  to  details. 

The    Motor    Region. — The    one    thing  which    is   per- 
fectly well   established   is  this,   that   the  'central*  con- 


Fio.  41.— Left  hemisphere  of  monkey's  brain.    Outer  surface. 


volutions,  on  either  side  of  the  fissure  of  Rolando,  and  (at 
least  in  the  monkey)  the  calloso-marginal  convolution 
(which  is  continuous  with  them  on  the  mesial  surface 
where  one  hemisphere  is  applied  against  the  other),  form 
the  region  by  which  all  the  motor  incitations  which  leave 
the  cortex  pass  out,  on  their  way  to  those  executive  centres 
in  the  region  of  the  pons,  medulla,  and  spinal  cord  from. 


THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  THE  BRAIN. 


107 


which  the  muscular  contractions  are  discharged  in  the  last 
resort.  The  existence  of  this  so-called  'motor  zone'  is 
established  by  anatomical  as  well  as  vivisectional  and 
pathological  evidence. 

The  accompanying  figures  (Figs.  41  and  42),  from 
Schaefer  and  Horsley,  show  the  topographical  arrangement 
of  the  monkey's  motor  zone  more  clearly  than  any  descrip- 
tion. 


Fia.  42.— Left  hemisphere  of  monkey's  brain.    Mesial  surface. 


Fig.  43,  after  Starr,  shows  how  the  fibres  run  downwards. 
All  sensory  currents  entering  the  hemispheres  run  out 
from  the  Kolandic  region,  which  may  thus  be  regarded  as 
a  sort  of  funnel  of  escape,  which  narrows  still  more  as  it 
plunges  beneath  the  surface,  traversing  the  inner  capsule, 
pons,  and  parts  below.  The  dark  ellipses  on  the  left  half 
of  the  diagram  stand  for  hemorrhages  or  tumors,  and  the 
reader  can  easily  trace,  by  following  the  course  of  the 
fibres,  what  the  effect  of  them  in  interrupting  motor  cur- 
rents may  be. 


10S 


rSTCnOLOGT. 


One  of  the  most  instructive  proofs  of  motor  localization 
in  the  cortex  is  that  furnished  by  the  disease  now  called 
aphemia,  or  motor  aphasia.  Motor  aphasia  is  neither  loss 
of  voice  nor  paralysis  of  the  tongue  or  lips.  The  patient's 
voice  is  as  strong  as  ever,  and  all  the  innervations  of  his 


Fio.  43.— Schematic  transverse  section  of  the  human  brain,  through  the  rolan- 
dic  region,  .s'.  fissure  of  Sylvius;  N.C.,  nucleus  caudal  us.  and  N.L.,  nucleus 
lenticularis,  of  the  corpus  striatum :  O.T.,  thalamus;  C,  cms;  M.  medulla 
oblongata;  I'//,  the  facial  nerves  passing  out  from  their  nucleus  in  the  region 
of  the  pons.  The  fibres  passing  between  0.7'.  and  N.L.  constitute  the  so- 
called  internal  capsule. 


hypoglossal  and  facial  nerves,  except  those  necessary  for 
speaking,  may  go  on  perfectly  well.  He  can  laugh  and 
cry,  and  even  sing;  but  he  either  is  unable  to  utter  any 
words  at  all;  or  a  few  meaningless  stock  phrases  form  his 
only  speech;  or  else  he  speaks  incoherently  and  confusedly, 


THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  THE  BRAIN. 


109 


mispronouncing,  misplacing,  and  misusing  his  words  in 
various  degrees.  Sometimes  his  speech  is  a  mere  broth  of 
unintelligible  syllables.  In  cases  of  pure  motor  aphasia 
the  patient  recognizes  his  mistakes  and  suffers  acutely 
from  them.  Now  whenever  a  patient  dies  in  such  a  con- 
dition as  this,  and  an  examination  of  his  brain  is  per- 


Fia.  44. — Schematic  profile  of  left  hemisphere,  with  the  parts  shaded  whoso 
destruction  causes  motor  ('Broca ')  and  sensory  (•  Wernicke  ')  aphasia. 

mitted,  it  is  found  that  the  lowest  frontal  gyrus  (see  Fig. 
44)  is  the  seat  of  injury.  Broca  first  noticed  this  fact 
in  1861,  and  since  then  the  gyrus  has  gone  by  the  name  of 
Broca's  convolution.  The  injury  in  right-handed  people  is 
found  on  the  left  hemisphere,  and  in  left-handed  people  on 
the  right  hemisphere.  Most  people,  in  fact,  are  left-brained, 
that  is,  all  their  delicate  and  specialized  movements  are 
handed  over  to  the  charge  of  the  left  hemisphere.  The 
ordinary  right-handedness  for  such  movements  is  only  a 
consequence  of  that  fact,  a  consequence  which  shows  out- 


110  PSYCHOLOGY. 

wardly  on  account  of  that  extensive  crossing  of  the  fibres 
from  the  left  hemisphere  to  the  right  half  of  the  body 
only,  which  is  shown  in  Fig.  41,  below  the  letter  M.  But 
the  left-brainedness  might  exist  and  not  show  outwardly. 
This  would  happen  wherever  organs  on  both  sides  of  the 
body  could  be  governed  by  the  left  hemisphere;  and  just 
such  a  case  seems  offered  by  the  vocal  organs,  in  that 
highly  delicate  and  special  motor  service  which  we  call 
speech.  Either  hemisphere  can  innervate  them  bilater- 
ally, just  as  either  seems  able  to  innervate  bilaterally 
the  muscles  of  the  trunk,  ribs,  and  diaphragm.  Of  the 
special  movements  of  speech,  however,  it  would  appeal 
(from  these  very  facts  of  aphasia)  that  the  left  hemisphere 
in  most  persons  habitually  takes  exclusive  charge.  With 
that  hemisphere  thrown  out  of  gear,  speech  is  undone; 
even  though  the  opposite  hemisphere  still  be  there  for  the 
performance  of  less  specialized  acts,  such  as  the  various 
movements  required  in  eating. 

The  visual  centre  is  in  the  occipital  lobes.  This  also 
is  proved  by  all  the  three  kinds  of  possible  evidence. 
It  seems  that  the  fibres  from  the  left  halves  of  both  retina? 
go  to  the  left  hemisphere,  those  from  the  right  half  to 
the  right  hemisphere.  The  consequence  is  that  when  the 
right  occipital  lobe,  for  example,  is  injured,  '  hemianopsia' 
results  in  both  eyes,  that  is,  both  retinae  grow  blind  as  to 
their  right  halves,  and  the  patient  loses  the  leftward  half 
of  his  field  of  view.  The  diagram  on  p.  Ill  will  make  this 
matter  clear  (see  Fig.  45). 

Quite  recently,  both  Schaefer  and  Munk,  in  studying 
the  movements  of  the  eyeball  produced  by  galvanizing  the 
visual  cortex  in  monkeys  and  dogs,  have  found  reason  to 
plot  out  an  analogous  correspondence  between  the  upper 
and  lower  portions  of  the  retinas  and  certain  parts  of  the 
visual  cortex.  If  both  occipital  lobes  were  destroyed, 
we  should  have  double  hemiopia,  or,  in  other  words, 
total  blindness.  In  human  hemiopic  blindness  there  is 
insensibility  to  light  on.  one  half  of  the  field  of  view,  but 


TEE  FUNCTIONS  OF  TEE  BRAIN. 


Ill 


mental  images  of  visible  things  remain.  In  double  hemi- 
opia  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  not  only  the  sen- 
sation of  light  must  go,  but  that  all  memories  and  images 


L     T.  F. 


R.N.  F 


L.OS 


LOO 


^10.  4o.— Scheme  of  the  mechanism  of  vision,  after  Seguin.  The  cuneua  con- 
volution (C«)  of  the  right  occipital  lobe  is  supposed  to  be  injured,  and  all 
the  parts  which  lead  to  it  are  darkly  shaded  to  show  that  they  fail  to  exert 
their  function.  F.O.  are  the  intra  hemispheric  optical  fibres.  P.U.C.  is  the 
region  of  the  lower  optic  centres  (corpora  geniculata  and  quadrigeruina). 
T.O.D.  is  the  right  optic  tract;  C,  thechiasma;  F.L.D.  are  the  fibres  going 
to  the  lateral  or  temporal  half  T  of  the  right  retina,  and  F.C.S.  are  those 
going  to  the  central  or  nasal  half  of  the  left  retina.  O.D.  is  the  right,  and 
U.S.  the  left,  eyeball.  The  rightward  half  of  each  is  therefore  blind;  in  other 
word*,  the  right  nasal  field,  R.N.F.,  and  the  left  temporal  field,  L.T.F.,  have 
become  invisible  to  the  subject  with  the  lesion  at  Cu. 


112 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


of  a  visual  order  must  be  annihilated  also.  The  man  loses 
his  visual  'ideas.'  Only  'cortical'  blindness  can  produce 
this  effect  on  the  ideas.  Destruction  of  the  retinae  or  of 
the  visual  tracts  anywhere  between  the  cortex  and  the  eyes 
impairs  the  retinal  sensibility  to  light,  but  not  the  power 
of  visual  imagination. 

Mental  Blindness. — A  most  interesting  effect  of  cortical 
disorder  is  mental  blindness.     This  consists  not  so  much 


Fig.  4G.— Fibres  associating  the  cortical  centres  together.    (Schematic,  after 

Starr.) 


in  insensibility  to  optical  impressions,  as  in  inability  to 
understand  them.  Psychologically  it  is  interpretable  as 
loss  of  associations  between  optical  sensations  and  what 
they  signify;  and  any  interruption  of  the  paths  between 
the  optic  centres  and  the  centres  for  other  ideas  ought  to 
bring  it  about.  Thus,  printed  letters  of  the  alphabet,  or 
words,  signify  both  certain  sounds  and  certain  articulatory 
movements.  But  the  connection  between  the  articulating 
or  auditory  centres  and  those  for  sight  being  ruptured,  we 
ought  a  priori  to  expect  that  the  sight  of  words  would 


TSE  FUNCTIONS  OF  TEE  BRAIN.  113 

fail  to  awaken  the  idea  of  their  sound,  or  of  the  movement 
for  pronouncing  them.  We  ought,  in  short,  to  have  alexia, 
or  inability  to  read ;  and  this  is  just  what  we  do  have  as  a 
complication  of  aphasic  disease  in  many  cases  of  extensive 
injury  about  the  fronto-temporal  regions. 

Where  an  object  fails  to  be  recognized  by  sight,  it  often 
happens  that  the  patient  will  recognize  and  name  it  as 
soon  as  he  touches  it  with  his  hand.  This  shows  in  an 
interesting  way  how  numerous  are  the  incoming  paths 
which  all  end  by  running  out  of  the  brain  through  the 
channel  of  speech.  The  hand-path  is  open,  though  the 
eye-path  be  closed.  When  mental  blindness  is  most  com- 
plete, neither  sight,  touch,  nor  sound  avails  to  steer  the 
patient,  and  a  sort  of  dementia  which  has  been  called  asym- 
bolia  or  apraxia  is  the  result.  The  commonest  articles 
are  not  understood.  The  patient  will  put  his  breeches  on 
one  shoulder  and  his  hat  upon  the  other,  will  bite  into 
the  soap  and  lay  his  shoes  on  the  table,  or  take  his  food 
into  his  hand  and  throw  it  down  again,  not  knowing  what 
to  do  with  it,  etc.  Such  disorder  can  only  come  from 
extensive  brain-injury. 

The  centre  for  hearing  is  situated  in  man  in  the  upper 
convolution  of  the  temporal  lobe  (see  the  part  marked 
'Wernicke'  in  Fig.  44).  The  phenomena  of  aphasia  show 
this.  We  studied  motor  aphasia  a  few  pages  back;  we 
must  now  consider  sensory  aphasia.  Our  knowledge  of 
aphasia  has  had  three  stages :  we  may  talk  of  the  period 
of  Broca,  the  period  of  Wernicke,  and  the  period  of  Char- 
cot. What  Broca's  discovery  was  we  have  seen.  Wer- 
nicke was  the  first  to  discriminate  those  cases  in  which 
the  patient  can  not  even  understand  speech  from  those  in 
which  he  can  understand,  only  not  talk;  and  to  ascribe 
the  former  condition  to  lesion  of  the  temporal  lobe.  The 
condition  in  question  is  word-deafness,  and  the  disease  is 
auditory  aphasia.  The  latest  statistical  survey  of  the 
subject  is  that  by  Dr.  Allen  Starr.  In  the  seven  cases 
of  pure  word-deafness  which  he  has  collected   (cases  in 


114  PSYCHOLOGY.  « 

which  the  patient  could  read,  talk,  and  write,  but  not 
understand  what  was  said  to  him),  the  lesion  was  limited 
to  the  first  and  second  temporal  convolutions  in  their 
posterior  two  thirds.  The  lesion  (in  right-handed,  i.e.  left- 
brained,  persons)  is  always  on  the  left  side,  like  the  lesion 
in  motor  aphasia.  Crude  hearing  would  not  be  abolished 
even  were  the  left  centre  for  it  utterly  destroyed ;  the  right 
centre  would  still  provide  for  that.  But  the  linguistic  use 
of  hearing  appears  bound  up  with  the  integrity  of  the  left 
centre  more  or  less  exclusively.  Here  it  must  be  that 
words  heard  enter  into  association  with  the  things  which 
they  represent,  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  the  movements 
necessary  for  pronouncing  them,  on  the  other.  In  most 
of  us  (as  Wernicke  said)  speech  must  go  on  from  auditory 
cues;  that  is,  our  visual,  tactile,  and  other  ideas  probably 
do  not  innervate  our  motor  centres  directly,  but  only  afber 
first  arousing  the  mental  sound  of  the  words.  This  is  the 
immediate  stimulus  to  articulation;  and  where  the  possi- 
bility of  this  is  abolished  by  the  destruction  of  its  usual 
channel  in  the  left  temporal  lobe,  the  articulation  must 
suffer.  In  the  few  cases  in  which  the  channel  is  abolished 
with  no  bad  effect  on  speech  we  must  suppose  an  idiosyn- 
crasy. The  patient  must  innervate  his  speech-organs  either 
from  the  corresponding  portion  of  the  other  hemisphere 
or  directly  from  the  centres  of  vision,  touch,  etc.,  without 
leaning  on  the  auditory  region.  It  is  the  minuter  analysis 
of  such  individual  differences  as  these  which  constitutes 
Charcot's  contribution  towards  clearing  up  the  subject. 

Every  namable  thing  has  numerous  properties,  qualities, 
or  aspects.  In  our  minds  the  properties  together  with  the 
name  form  an  associated  group.  If  different  parts  of  tho 
brain  are  severally  concerned  with  the  several  properties, 
and  a  farther  part  with  the  hearing,  and  still  another 
with  the  uttering,  of  the  name,  there  must  inevitably  be 
brought  about  (through  the  law  of  association  which  we 
shall  later  study)  such  a  connection  amongst  all  these  brain- 
parts  that  the  activity  of  any  one  of  them  will  be  likely  to 


THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  THE  BRAIN.  115 

awaken  the  activity  of  all  the  rest.  When  we  are  talking 
whilst  we  think,  the  ultimate  process  is  utterance.  If  the 
brain-part  for  that  be  injured,  speech  is  impossible  or  dis- 
orderly, even  though  all  the  other  brain-parts  be  intact: 
and  this  is  just  the  condition  of  things  which,  on  p.  109, 
we  found  to  be  brought  about  by  lesion  of  the  convolution 
of  Broca.  But  back  of  that  last  act  various  orders  of  suc- 
cession are  possible  in  the  associations  of  a  talking  man's 
ideas.  The  more  usual  order  is,  as  aforesaid,  from  the  tac- 
tile, visual,  or  other  properties  of  the  things  thought-about 
to  the  sound  of  their  names,  and  then  to  the  latter's  utter- 
ance. But  if  in  a  certain  individual's  mind  the  look  of  an 
object  or  the  looJc  of  its  name  be  what  habitually  precedes 
articulation,  then  the  loss  of  the  hearing  centre  will  pro 
tanto  not  affect  that  individual's  speech  or  reading.  He 
will  be  mentally  deaf,  i.e.  his  understanding  of  the  human 
roice  will  suffer,  but  he  will  not  be  aphasic.  In  this  way 
it  is  possible  to  explain  the  seven  cases  of  word-deafness 
without  motor  aphasia  which  figure  in  Dr.  Starr's  table. 

If  this  order  of  association  be  ingrained  and  habitual  in 
that  individual,  injury  to  his  visual  centres  will  make  him 
not  only  word-blind,  but  aphasic  as  well.  His  speech  will 
become  confused  in  consequence  of  an  occipital  lesion. 
Naunyn,  consequently,  plotting  out  on  a  diagram  of  the 
hemisphere  the  71  irreproachably  reported  cases  of  aphasia 
which  he  was  able  to  collect,  finds  that  the  lesions  concen- 
trate themselves  in  three  places :  first,  on  Broca's  centre ; 
second,  on  Wernicke's;  third,  on  the  supra-marginal  and 
angular  convolutions  under  which  those  fibres  pass  which 
connect  the  visual  centres  with  the  rest  of  the  brain  (see 
Fig.  47,  p.  116).  With  this  result  Dr.  Starr's  analysis  of 
purely  sensory  cases  agrees. 

In  the  chapter  on  Imagination  we  shall  return  to  these 
differences  in  the  sensory  spheres  of  different  individuals. 
Meanwhile  few  things  show  more  beautifully  than  the  his- 
tory of  our  knowledge  of  aphasia  how  the  sagacity  and 
patience  of  many  banded  workers  are  in  time  certain  to 


116 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


analyze  the  darkest  confusion  into  an  orderly  display. 
There  is  no  'organ'  of  Speech  in  the  brain  any  more  than 
there  is  a  '  faculty '  of  Speech  in  the  mind.  The  entire 
mind  and  the  entire  brain  are  more  or  less  at  work  in  a 


Fia.  47. 


man  who  uses  language.  The  subjoined  diagram,  from 
Ross,  shows  the  four  parts  most  vitally  concerned,  and, 
in  the  light  of  our  text,  needs  no  farther  explanation  (see 
Fig.  48,  p.  117). 

Centres  for  Smell,  Taste,  and  Touch. — The  other  sensory 
centres  are  less  definitely  made  out.  Of  smell  and  taste  I 
will  say  nothing;  and  of  muscular  and  cutaneous  feeling 
only  this,  that  it  seems  most  probably  seated  in  the  motor 
zone,  and  possibly  in  the  convolutions  immediately  back- 
wards and  midwards  thereof.  The  incoming  tactile  cur- 
rents must  enter  the  cells  of  this  region  by  one  set  of  fibres, 
and  the  discharges  leave  them  by  another,  but  of  these 
refinements  of  anatomy  we  at  present  know  nothing. 


THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  THE  BRAIN. 


117 


Conclusion. — We  thus  see  the  postulate  of  Meynert  and 
Jackson,  with  which  we  started  on  p.  105,  to  be  on  the  whole 
most  satisfactorily  corroborated  by  objective  research.  The 
highest  centres  do  probably  contain  nothing  but  arrange- 


Fia.  48.~A  is  the  auditory  centre,  V  the  visual,  W  the  writing,  and  E  that  for 

speech. 

ments  for  representing  impressions  and  movements,  and 
other  arrangements  for  coupling  the  activity  of  these  ar- 
rangements together.  Currents  pouring  in  from  the  sense- 
organs  first  excite  some  arrangements,  which  in  turn  excite 
others,  until  at  last  a  discharge  downwards  of  some  sort 
occurs.  When  this  is  once  clearly  grasped  there  remains 
little  ground  for  asking  whether  the  motor  zone  is  exclusively 
motor,  or  sensitive  as  well.    The  whole  cortex,  inasmuch  ap 


118  PSYCHOLOGY. 

currents  run  through  it,  is  both.  All  the  currents  probably 
have  feelings  going  with  them,  and  sooner  or  later  bring 
movements  about.  In  one  aspect,  then,  every  centre  is  affer- 
ent, in  another  efferent,even  the  motor  cells  of  the  spinal  cord 
having  these  two  aspects  inseparably  conjoined.  Marique, 
and  Exner  and  Paneth  have  shown  that  by  cutting  round 
a  '  motor '  centre  and  so  separating  it  from  the  influence  of 
the  rest  of  the  cortex,  the  same  disorders  are  produced  as 
by  cutting  it  out,  so  that  it  is  really  just  what  I  called  it, 
only  the  funnel  through  which  the  stream  of  innervation, 
starting  from  elsewhere,  escapes;  consciousness  accompany- 
ing the  stream,  and  being  mainly  of  tilings  seen  if  the 
stream  is  strongest  occipitally,  of  things  heard  if  it  is 
strongest  temporally,  of  things  felt,  etc.,  if  the  stream  occu- 
pies most  intensely  the  'motor  zone.'  It  seems  to  me  that 
some  broad  and  vague  formulation  like  this  is  as  much  as 
we  can  safely  venture  on  in  the  present  state  of  science — 
bo  much  at  least  is  not  likely  to  be  overturned.  But  it  is 
obvious  how  little  this  tells  us  of  the  detail  of  what  goes 
on  in  the  brain  when  a  certain  thought  is  before  the  mind. 
The  general  forms  of  relation  perceived  between  things,  as 
their  identities,  likenesses,  or  contrasts;  the  forms  of  the 
consciousness  itself,  as  effortless  or  perplexed,  attentive  or 
inattentive,  pleasant  or  disagreeable;  the  phenomena  ol 
interest  and  selection,  etc.,  etc.,  are  all  lumped  together  afl 
effects  correlated  with  the  currents  that  connect  one  centre 
with  another.  Nothing  can  be  more  vague  than  such  a 
formula.  Moreover  certain  portions  of  the  brain,  as  the 
lower  frontal  lobes,  escape  formulational  together.  Their 
destruction  gives  rise  to  no  local  trouble  of  either  motion 
or  sensibility  in  dogs,  and  in  monkeys  neither  stimulation 
nor  excision  of  these  lobes  produces  any  symptoms  what- 
ever. One  monkey  of  Horsley  and  Schaefer's  was  as  tame, 
and  did  certain  tricks  as  well,  after  as  before  the  operation. 
It  is  in  short  obvious  that  our  knowledge  of  our  mental 
states  infinitely  exceeds  our  knowledge  of  their  concomi- 
tant cerebral  conditions.    Without  introspective  analysis  of 


THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  THE  BRAIN.  119 

the  mental  elements  of  speech,  the  doctrine  of  Aphasia,  for 
instance,  which  is  the  most  brilliant  jewel  in  Physiology, 
would  have  been  utterly  impossible.  Our  assumption, 
therefore  (p.  5),  that  mind-states  are  absolutely  dependent 
on  brain-conditions,  must  still  be  understood  as  a  mere 
postulate.  We  may  have  a  general  faith  that  it  must  be- 
true,  but  any  exact  insight  as  to  how  it  is  true  lags  wofully 
behind. 

Before  taking  up  the  study  of  conscious  states  prop- 
erly so  called,  I  will  in  a  separate  chapter  speak  of  two  or 
three  aspects  of  brain-function  which  have  a  general  im- 
portance and  which  cooperate  in  the  production  of  all  our 
mental  states. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

SOME  GENERAL  CONDITIONS  OF  NEURAL  ACTIVITY. 

The   Nervous  Discharge.—  The  word   discharge  is  con- 
stantly used,  and  must  be  used  in  this  book,  to  designate 
the  escape  of  a  current  downwards  into  muscles  or  other 
internal   organs.     The   reader   must   not  understand  the 
word  figuratively.     From  the  point  of  view  of  dynamics 
the  passage  of  a  current  out  of  a  motor  cell  is  probably 
altogether  analogous  to  the  explosion  of  a  gun.     The  mat- 
ter of  the  cell  is  in  a  state  of  internal  tension,  which  the 
incoming  current  resolves,  tumbling  the  molecules  into  a 
more    stable    equilibrium   and  liberating  an   amount   of 
energy  which   starts   the   current  of  the   outgoing  fibre. 
This  current  is  stronger  than  that  of  the  incoming  fibre. 
When  it  reaches  the  muscle  it  produces  an  analogous  dis- 
integration of  pent-up  molecules  and  the  result  is  a  stronger 
effect  still.     Matteuci  found  that  the  work  done  by  a  mus- 
cle's contraction  was  27,000  times  greater  than  that  done 
by  the  galvanic  current  which  stimulated  its  motor  nerve. 
When  a  frog's  leg-muscle  is  made  to  contract,  first  directly, 
by  stimulation  of  its  motor  nerve,  and  second  reflexly,  by 
stimulation  of  a  sensory  nerve,  it  is  found  that  the  reflex 
way  requires  a  stronger  current  and  is  more  tardy,  but 
that  the  contraction  is  stronger  when  it  does  occur.     These 
facts  prove  that  the  cells  in  the  spinal  cord  through  which 
the  reflex  takes  place  offer  a  resistance  which  has  first  to 
be  overcome,  but  that  a  relatively  violent  outward  current 
outwards  then  escapes  from  them.     What  is  this  but  an 
explosive  discharge  on  a  minute  scale  ? 

Reaction-time.— The  measurement  of  the  time  required 
for  the  discharge  is  one  of  the  lines  of  experimental  inves- 


GENERAL   CONDITIONS  OF  NEURAL  ACTIVITY.   121 

tigation  most  diligently  followed  of  late  years.  Helmholtz 
led  the  way  by  discovering  the  rapidity  of  the  outgoing 
current  in  the  sciatic  nerve  of  the  frog.  The  methods 
he  used  were  soon  applied  to  sensory  reactions,  and  the 
results  caused  much  popular  admiration  when  described  as 
measurements  of  the  '  velocity  of  thought.'  The  phrase 
*  quick  as  thought '  had  from  time  immemorial  signified  all 
that  was  wonderful  and  elusive  of  determination  in  the  line 
of  speed ;  and  the  way  in  which  Science  laid  her  doomful 
hand  upon  this  mystery  reminded  people  of  the  day  when 
Franklin  first  '  eripuit  coelo  fulnmi,'  foreshadowing  the 
reign  of  a  newer  and  colder  race  of  gods.  I  may  say,  how- 
ever, immediately,  that  the  phrase  'velocity  of  thought'  is 
misleading,  for  it  is  by  no  means  clear  in  any  of  the  cases 
what  particular  act  of  thought  occurs  during  the  time 
which  is  measured.  "What  the  times  in  question  really 
represent  is  the  total  duration  of  certain  reactions  upon 
stimuli.  Certain  of  the  conditions  of  the  reaction  are 
prepared  beforehand;  they  consist  in  the  assumption  of 
those  motor  and  sensory  tensions  which  we  name  the  ex- 
pectant state.  Just  what  happens  during  the  actual  time 
occupied  by  the  reaction  (in  other  words,  just  what  is 
added  to  the  preexistent  tensions  to  produce  the  actual 
discharge)  is  not  made  out  at  present,  either  from  the 
neural  or  from  the  mental  point  of  view. 

The  method  is  essentially  the  same  in  all  these  investiga- 
tions. A  signal  of  some  sort  is  communicated  to  the  sub- 
ject, and  at  the  same  instant  records  itself  on  a  time-regis- 
tering apparatus.  The  subject  then  makes  a  muscular 
movement  of  some  sort,  which  is  the  'reaction,'  and  which 
also  records  itself  automatically.  The  time  found  to  have 
elapsed  between  the  two  records  is  the  total  time  of  that 
reaction.  The  time-registering  instruments  are  of  various 
types.  One  type  is  that  of  the  revolving  drum  covered 
with  smoked  paper,  on  which  one  electric  pen  traces  a  line 
which  the  signal  breaks  and  the  'reaction'  draws  again; 
whilst  another  electric  pen  (connected  with  a  rod  of  metal 


122 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


\ 

'                               \ 

\ 

\AAaaAAAAA/WW^1AAAAAA/^ 

vibrating  at  a  known  rate)  traces  alongside  of  the  former 
line  a  '  time-line'  of  which  each  undulation  or  link  stands 
for  a  certain  fraction  of  a  second,  and  against  which  the 
break  in  the  reaction-line  can  be  measured.  Compare  Fig. 
49,  where   the   line  is  broken  by  the  signal  at  the   first 

Signal.  Reaction. 


Reaction-line. 


Time-line. 


Fio.  49. 

arrow,  and  continued  again  by  the  reaction  at  the  second. 
The  machine  most  often  used  is  Hipp's  chronoscopic  clock. 
The  hands  are  placed  at  zero,  the  signal  starts  them  (by 
an  electric  connection),  and  the  reaction  stops  them.  The 
duration  of  their  movement,  down  to  lOOOths  of  a  second, 
is  then  read  off  from  the  dial-plates. 

Simple  Reactions. —  It  is  found  that  the  reaction-time 
differs  in  the  same  person  according  to  the  direction  of  his 
expectant  attention.  If  he  thinks  as  little  as  possible  of 
the  movement  which  he  is  to  make,  and  concentrates  his 
mind  upon  the  signal  to  be  received,  it  is  longer;  if,  on  the 
contrary,  he  bends  his  mind  exclusively  upon  the  muscu- 
lar response,  it  is  shorter.  Lange,  who  first  noticed  this 
fact  when  working  in  Wundt's  laboratory,  found  his  own 
'muscular'  reaction-time  to  average  0".123,  whilst  his 
'sensorial'  reaction-time  averaged  as  much  as  0".230.  It  is 
obvious  that  experiments,  to  have  any  comparative  value, 
must  always  be  made  according  to  the  '  muscular '  method, 
which  reduces  the  figure  to  its  minimum  and  makes  it 
more  constant.  In  general  it  lies  between  one  and  two 
tenths  of  a  second.  It  seems  to  me  that  under  these  cir- 
cumstances the  reaction  is  essentially  a  reflex  act.  The 
preliminary  making-ready  of  the  muscles  for  the  move- 


GENERAL  CONDITIONS  OF  NEURAL  ACTIVITY.   123 

ment  means  the  excitement  of  the  paths  of  discharge  to 
a  point  just  short  of  actual  discharge  before  the  signal 
comes  in.  In  other  words,  it  means  the  temporary  forma- 
tion of  a  real  'reflex-arc'  in  the  centres,  through  which 
the  incoming  current  instantly  can  pour  out  again.  But 
when,  on  the  other  hand,  the  expectant  attention  is  exclu- 
sively addressed  to  the  signal,  the  excitement  of  the  motor 
tracts  can  only  begin  after  this  latter  has  come  in,  and 
under  this  condition  the  reaction  takes  more  time.  In 
the  hair-trigger  condition  in  which  we  stand  when  making 
reactions  by  the  '  muscular '  method,  we  sometimes  respond 
to  a  wrong  signal,  especially  if  it  be  of  the  same  kind  with 
the  one  we  expect.  The  signal  is  but  the  spark  which 
touches  off  a  train  already  laid.  There  is  no  thought  in 
the  matter;  the  hand  jerks  by  an  involuntary  start. 

These  experiments  are  thus  in  no  sense  measurements  of 
the  swiftness  of  thought.  Only  when  we  complicate  them 
is  there  a  chance  for  anything  like  an  intellectual  operation 
to  occur.  They  may  be  complicated  in  various  ways.  The 
reaction  may  be  withheld  until  the  signal  has  consciously 
awakened  a  distinct  idea  (Wundt's  discrimination-time,  asso- 
ciation-time), and  may  then  be  performed.  Or  there  may  be 
a  variety  of  possible  signals,  each  with  a  different  reaction 
assigned  to  it,  and  the  reacter  may  be  uncertain  which  one 
he  is  about  to  receive.  The  reaction  would  then  hardly 
seem  to  occur  without  a  preliminary  recognition  and  choice. 
Even  here,  however,  the  discrimination  and  choice  are 
widely  different  from  the  intellectual  operations  of  which 
we  are  ordinarily  conscious  under  those  names.  Mean- 
while the  simple  reaction-time  remains  as  the  starting 
point  of  all  these  superinduced  complications,  and  its  own 
variations  must  be  briefly  passed  in  review. 

The  reaction-time  varies  with  the  individual  and  his 
age.  Old  and  uncultivated  people  have  it  long  (nearly  a 
second,  in  an  old  pauper  observed  by  Exner).  Children 
have  it  long  (half  a  second,  according  to  Herzen). 

Practice  shortens  it  to  a  quantity  which  is  for  each  indi- 


124  P8YCH0L0Q  T. 

vidual  a  minimum  beyond  which  no  farther  reduction  can 
be  made.  The  aforesaid  old  pauper's  time  was,  after  much 
practice,  reduced  to  0.18GG  sec. 

Fatigue  lengthens  it,  and  concentrutiou  of  attention 
shortens  it.  The  nature  of  the  signal  makes  it  vary.  I 
here  bring  together  the  averages  which  have  been  obtained 
by  some  observers : 

Hirscli.  Hankel.  Exner.  Wundt. 

Sound 0.149  0.1505  0.1360  0.167 

Light 0.200  0.2246  0.1506  0.222 

Touch 0.182  0.1546  0.1337  0.213 

It  will  be  observed  that  sound  is  more  promptly  reacted 
on  than  either  sight  or  touch.  Taste  and  smell  are  slower 
than  either.  The  intensity  of  the  signal  makes  a  differ- 
ence. The  intenser  the  stimulus  the  shorter  the  time. 
Herzen  compared  the  reaction  from  a  corn  on  the  toe  with 
that  from  the  skin  of  the  hand  of  the  same  subject.  The 
two  places  were  stimulated  simultaneously,  and  the  subject 
tried  to  react  simultaneously  with  both  hand  and  foot,  but 
the  foot  always  went  quickest.  When  the  sound  skin  of 
the  foot  was  touched  instead  of  the  corn,  it  was  the  hand 
which  always  reacted  first.  Intoxicants  on  the  whole 
lengthen  the  time,  but  much  depends  on  the  dose. 

Complicated  Reactions. — These  occur  when  some  kind 
of  intellectual  operation  accompanies  the  reaction.  The 
rational  place  in  which  to  report  of  them  would  be  under 
the  head  of  the  various  intellectual  operations  concerned. 
But  certain  persons  prefer  to  see  all  these  measurements 
bunched  together  regardless  of  context;  so,  to  meet  their 
views,  I  give  the  complicated  reactions  here. 

When  we  have  to  think  before  reacting  it  is  obvious  that 
there  is  no  definite  reaction-time  of  which  we  can  talk — it 
all  depends  on  how  long  we  think.  The  only  times  we 
can  measure  are  the  minimum  times  of  certain  determinate 
and  very  simple  intellectual  operations.  The  time  required 
for  discrimination  has  thus  been  made  a  subject  of  experi- 
mental measurement.    Wundt  calls  it  L'ntersvhviflunyszeit. 


GENERAL   CONDITIONS  OF  NEURAL  ACTIVITY.  125 

His  subjects  (whose  simple  reaction-time  had  previously 
been  determined)  were  required  to  make  a  movement, 
always  the  same,  the  instant  they  discerned  which  of  two 
or  more  signals  they  received.  The  excess  of  time  occupied 
by  these  reactions  over  the  simple  reaction-time,  in  which 
only  one  signal  was  used  and  known  in  advance,  measured, 
according  to  Wundt,  the  time  required  for  the  act  of  dis- 
crimination. It  was  found  longer  when  four  different 
signals  were  irregularly  used  than  when  only  two  were 
used.  When  two  were  used  (the  signals  being  the  sudden 
appearance  of  a  black  or  of  a  white  object),  the  average 
times  of  three  observers  were  respectively  (in  seconds) 
0.050  0.047  0.079 
When  four  signals  were  used,  a  red  and  a  green  light 
being  added  to  the  others,  it  became,  for  the  same  observers, 
0.157  0.073  0.132 
Prof.  Cattell  found  he  could  get  no  results  by  this 
method,  and  reverted  to  one  used  by  observers  previous  to 
Wundt  and  which  Wundt  had  rejected.  This  is  the 
einfache  Wahlmethode,  as  Wundt  calls  it.  The  reacter 
awaits  the  signal  and  reacts  if  it  is  of  one  sort,  but  omits 
to  act  if  it  is  of  another  sort.  The  reaction  thus  occurs 
after  discrimination;  the  motor  impulse  cannot  be  sent 
to  the  hand  until  the  subject  knows  what  the  signal  is. 
Eeacting  in  this  way,  Prof.  Cattell  found  the  increment  of 
time  required  for  distinguishing  a  white  signal  from  no 
signal  to  be,  in  two  observers, 

0.030         and         0.050; 
that  for  distinguishing  one  color  from  another  was  simi- 
larly 

0.100        and        0.110; 
that  for   distinguishing   a   certain   color   from  ten  other 
colors, 

0.105         and         0.117; 
that  for  distinguishing  the  letter  A  in  ordinary  print  from 
the  letter  Z, 

0.142        and        0.137; 


126  PSYCHOLOGY. 

that  for  distinguishing  a  given  letter  from  all  the  rest  of 
the  alphabet  (not  reacting  until  that  letter  appeared), 

0.119        and        0.116; 
that  for  distinguishing  a  word  from  any  of  twenty-five 
other  words,  from 

0.118  to  0.158  sec. 

— the  difference  depending  on  the  length  of  the  words  and 
the  familiarity  of  the  language  to  which  they  belonged. 

Prof.  Cattell  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  time  for 
distinguishing  a  word  is  often  but  little  more  than  that  for 
distinguishing  a  letter:  "We  do  not,  therefore,"  he  says, 
"  distinguish  separately  the  letters  of  which  a  word  is  com- 
posed, but  the  word  as  a  whole.  The  application  of  this  in 
teaching  children  to  read  is  evident." 

He  also  finds  a  great  difference  in  the  time  with  which 
various  letters  are  distinguished,  E  being  particularly  bad. 

The  time  required  for  association  of  one  idea  with 
another  has  been  measured.  Oalton,  using  a  very  simple 
apparatus,  found  that  the  sight  of  an  unforeseen  word 
would  awaken  an  associated  'idea'  in  about  f  of  a  second. 
Wundt  next  made  determinations  in  which  the  '  cue '  wak 
given  by  single-syllabled  words  called  out  by  an  assistant- 
The  person  experimented  on  had  to  press  a  key  as  soon  as 
the  sound  of  the  word  awakened  an  associated  idea.  Both 
word  and  reaction  were  chronographically  registered,  and 
the  total  time-interval  between  the  two  amounted,  in  four 
observers,  to  1.009,  0.896,  1.037,  and  1.154  seconds  respec- 
tively. From  this  the  simple  reaction-time  and  the  time 
of  merely  identifying  the  word's  sound  (the  'apperception- 
time,'  as  Wundt  calls  it)  must  be  subtracted,  to  get  the 
exact  time  required  for  the  associated  idea  to  arise.  These 
times  were  separately  determined  and  subtracted.  The 
difference,  called  by  Wundt  association-time,  amounted,  in 
the  same  four  persons,  to  706,  723,  752;  and  874  thousandths 
of  a  second  respectively.  The  length  of  the  last  figure  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  person  reacting  was  an  American, 
whose  associations  with  German  words  would  naturally  be 


GENERAL   CONDITIONS  OF  NEURAL  ACTIVITY.   127 

slower  than  those  of  natives.  The  shortest  association-time 
noted  was  when  the  word  '  Sturm '  suggested  to  Wundt  the 
word  'Wind'  in  0.341  second.  Prof.  Cattell  made  some 
interesting  observations  upon  the  association-time  between 
the  look  of  letters  and  their  names.  "  I  pasted  letters,"  he 
says,  "  on  a  revolving  drum,  and  determined  at  what  rate 
they  could  be  read  aloud  as  they  passed  by  a  slit  in  a 
screen."  He  found  it  to  vary  according  as  one,  or  more 
than  one,  letter  was  visible  at  a  time  through  the  slit,  and 
gives  half  a  second  as  about  the  time  which  it  takes  to  see 
and  name  a  single  letter  seen  alone.  The  rapidity  of  a  man's 
reading  is  of  course  a  measure  of  that  of  his  associations, 
since  each  seen  word  must  call  up  its  name,  at  least,  ere  it 
is  read.  "  I  find,"  says  Prof.  Cattell,  "  that  it  takes  about 
twice  as  long  to  read  (aloud,  as  fast  as  possible)  words 
which  have  no  connection,  as  words  which  make  sentences, 
and  letters  which  have  no  connection,  as  letters  which  make 
words.  When  the  words  make  sentences  and  the  letters 
words,  not  only  do  the  processes  of  seeing  and  naming 
overlap,  but  by  one  mental  effort  the  subject  can  recognize 
a  whole  group  of  words  or  letters,  and  by  one  will-act 
choose  the  motions  to  be  made  in  naming,  so  that  the  rate 
at  which  the  words  and  letters  are  read  is  really  only  lim- 
ited by  the  maximum  rapidity  at  which  the  speech-organs 
can  be  moved.  .  .  .  For  example,  when  reading  as  fast  as 
possible  the  writer's  rate  was,  English  138,  French  167, 
German  250,  Italian  327,  Latin  434,  and  Greek  484;  the 
figures  giving  the  thousandths  of  a  second  taken  to  read 
each  word.  Experiments  made  on  others  strikingly  con-, 
firm  these  results.  The  subject  does  not  know  that  he  is" 
reading  the  foreign  language  more  slowly  than  his  own; 
this  explains  why  foreigners  seem  to  talk  so  fast.  .  .  . 

"  The  time  required  to  see  and  name  colors  and  pictures 
of  objects  was  determined  in  the  same  way.  The  time  was 
found  to  be  about  the  same  (over  \  sec.)  for  colors  as  for 
pictures,  and  about  twice  as  long  as  for  words  and  letters. 
Other  experiments  I  have  made  show  that  we  can  recognize 


128  PSYCHOLOGY. 

a  single  color  or  picture  in  a  slightly  shorter  time  than  a 
word  or  letter,  but  take  longer  to  name  it.  This  is 
because,  in  the  case  of  words  and  letters,  the  association 
between  the  idea  and  the  name  has  taken  place  so  often  that 
the  process  has  become  automatic,  whereas  in  the  case  of 
colors  and  pictures  we  must  by  a  voluntary  effort  choose 
the  name." 

Dr.  Romanes  has  found  "  astonishing  differences  in  the 
maximum  rate  of  reading  which  is  possible  to  different 
individuals,  all  of  whom  have  been  accustomed  to  extensive 
reading.  That  is  to  say,  the  difference  may  amount  to 
4  to  1;  or,  otherwise  stated,  in  a  given  time  one  individual 
maybe  able  to  read  four  times  as  much  as  another.  More- 
over, it  appeared  that  there  was  no  relationship  between 
slowness  of  reading  and  power  of  assimilation;  on  the  con- 
trary, when  all  the  efforts  are  directed  to  assimilating  as 
much  as  possible  in  a  given  time,  the  rapid  readers  (as 
shown  by  their  written  notes)  usually  give  a  better  account 
of  the  portions  of  the  paragraph  which  have  been  com- 
passed by  the  slow  readers  than  the  latter  are  able  to  give; 
and  the  most  rapid  reader  I  have  found  is  also  the  best  at 
assimilating.  I  should  further  say,"  Dr.  R.  continues, 
"  that  there  is  no  relationship  between  rapidity  of  percep- 
tion as  thus  tested  and  intellectual  activity  as  tested  by  the 
general  results  of  intellectual  work;  for  I  have  tried  the 
experiment  with  several  highly  distinguished  men  in 
science  and  literature,  most  of  whom  I  found  to  be  slow 
readers." 

The  degree  of  concentration  of  the  attention  has  much  to 
do  with  determining  the  reaction-time.  Anything  which 
baffles  or  distracts  us  beforehand,  or  startles  us  in  the 
signal,  makes  the  time  proportionally  long. 

The  Summation  of  Stimuli. — Throughout  the  nerve-cen- 
tres it  is  a  law  that  a  stimulus  which  would  be  inadequate 
by  itself  to  excite  a  nerve-centre  to  effective  discharge  may, 
bi/  acting  with  one  or  more  other  stimuli  (equally  inef- 
fectual by  themselves  alone)  bring  the   discharge  about. 


GENERAL   CONDITIONS  OF  NEURAL  ACTIVITY.   129 

The  natural  way  to  consider  this  is  as  a  summation  of 
tensions  which  at  last  overcome  a  resistance.  The  first 
of  them  produce  a  '  latent  excitement '  or  a  '  heightened 
irritability' — the  phrase  is  immaterial  so  far  as  practical 
consequences  go; — the  last  is  the  straw  which  breaks  the 
camel's  back. 

This  is  proved  by  many  physiological  experiments  which 
cannot  here  be  detailed;  but  outside  of  the  laboratory  we 
constantly  apply  the  law  of  summation  in  our  practical 
appeals.  If  a  car-horse  balks,  the  final  way  of  starting 
him  is  by  applying  a  number  of  customary  incitements  at 
once.  If  the  driver  uses  reins  and  voice,  if  one  bystander 
pulls  at  his  head,  another  lashes  his  hind-quarters,  the 
conductor  rings  the  bell,  and  the  dismounted  passengers 
shove  the  car,  all  at  the  same  moment,  his  obstinacy  gen- 
erally yields,  and  he  goes  on  his  way  rejoicing.  If  we 
are  striving  to  remember  a  lost  name  or  fact,  we  think 
of  as  many  '  cues '  as  possible,  so  that  by  their  joint  action 
they  may  recall  what  no  one  of  them  can  recall  alone. 
The  sight  of  a  dead  prey  will  often  not  stimulate  a  beast 
to  pursuit,  but  if  the  sight  of  movement  be  added  to 
that  of  form,  pursuit  occurs.  "  Bri'icke  noted  that  his 
brainless  hen  which  made  no  attempt  to  peck  at  the  grain 
under  her  very  eyes,  began  pecking  if  the  grain  were  thrown 
on  the  ground  with  force,  so  as  to  produce  a  rattling 
sound."  "  Dr.  Allen  Thomson  hatched  out  some  chickens 
on  a  carpet,  where  he  kept  them  for  several  days.  They 
showed  no  inclination  to  scrape,  .  .  ,  but  when  Dr.  Thom- 
son sprinkled  a  little  gravel  on  the  carpet,  .  .  .  the  chick- 
ens immediately  began  their  scraping  movements."  A 
strange  person,  and  darkness,  are  both  of  them  stimuli  to 
fear  and  mistrust  in  dogs  (and  for  the  matter  of  that,  in 
men).  Neither  circumstance  alone  may  awaken  outward 
manifestations,  but  together,  i.e.  when  the  strange  man 
is  met  in  the  dark,  the  dog  will  be  excited  to  violent  defi- 
ance. Street  hawkers  well  know  the  efficacy  of  summation, 
for  they  arrange  themselves  in  a  line  on  the  sidewalk,  and 


130  PSYCHOLOGY. 

the  passer  often  buys  from  the  last  one  of  them,  through  the 
effect  of  the  reiterated  solicitation,  what  he  refused  to  buy 
from  the  first  in  the  row. 

Cerebral  Blood-supply. — All  parts  of  the  cortex,  when 
electrically  excited,  produce  alterations  both  of  respiration 
and  circulation.  The  blood-pressure  somewhat  rises,  as  a 
rule,  all  over  the  body,  no  matter  where  the  cortical  irrita- 
tion is  applied,  though  the  motor  zone  is  the  most  sensi- 
tive region  for  the  purpose.  Slowing  and  quickening  of  the 
heart  are  also  observed.  Mosso,  using  his  '  plethysmograph ' 
as  an  indicator,  discovered  that  the  blood-supply  to  the  arms 
diminished  during  intellectual  activity,  and  found  further- 
more that  the  arterial  tension  (as  shown  by  the  sphygmo- 
graph)  was  increased  in  these  members  (see  Fig.  50).     So 


Fig.  50.— Sphygmographic  pulse-tracing.  A,  during  intellectual  repose;  B, 
during  intellectual  activity.     (Mosso.) 

slight  an  emotion  as  that  produced  by  the  entrance  of 
Professor  Ludwig  into  the  laDoratory  was  instantly  followed 
by  a  shrinkage  of  the  arms.  The  brain  itself  is  an  exces- 
sively vascular  organ,  a  sponge  full  of  blood,  in  fact;  and 
another  of  Mosso's  inventions  showed  that  when  less  blood 
went  to  the  legs,  more  went  to  the  head.  The  subject  to 
be  observed  lay  on  a  delicately  balanced  table  which  could 
tip  downward  either  at  the  head  or  at  the  foot  if  the 
weight  of  either  end  were  increased.  The  moment  emo- 
tional or  intellectual  activity  began  in  the  subject,  down 
went  the  head-end,  in  consequence  of  the  redistribution 
of  blood  in  his  system.  But  the  best  proof  of  the  im- 
mediate afflux  of  blood  to  the  brain  during  mental  ac- 
tivity is  due  to  Mosso's  observations  on  three  persons 
whose  brain  had   been   laid  bare  by  lesion  of   the  skull. 


GENERAL   CONDITIONS  OF  NEURAL  ACTIVITY.   131 

By  means  of  apparatus  described  in  his  book,  this  phy- 
siologist was  enabled  to  let  the  brain-pulse  record  itself 
directly  by  a  tracing.  The  intra-cranial  blood-pressure  rose 
immediately  whenever  the  subject  was  spoken  to,  or  when 
he  began  to  think  actively,  as  in  solving  a  problem  in 
mental  arithmetic.  Mosso  gives  in  his  work  a  large  num- 
ber of  reproductions  of  tracings  which  show  the  instanta- 
neity  of  the  change  of  blood-supply,  whenever  the  mental 
activity  was  quickened  by  any  cause  whatever,  intellectual 
or  emotional.  He  relates  of  his  female  subject  that  one 
day  whilst  tracing  her  brain-pulse  he  observed  a  sudden 
rise  with  no  apparent  outer  or  inner  cause.  She  however 
confessed  to  him  afterwards  that  at  that  moment  she  had 
caught  sight  of  a  skull  on  top  of  a  piece  of  furniture  in 
the  room,  and  that  this  had  given  her  a  slight  emotion. 

Cerebral  Thermometry. — Brain-activity  seems  accom- 
panied by  a  local  disengagement  of  heat.  The  earliest 
careful  work  in  this  direction  was  by  Dr.  J.  S.  Lombard  in 
1867.  He  noted  the  changes  in  delicate  thermometers  and 
electric  piles  placed  against  the  scalp  in  human  beings, 
and  found  that  any  intellectual  effort,  such  as  computing, 
composing,  reciting  poetry  silently  or  aloud,  and  especially 
that  emotional  excitement  such  as  an  angry  fit,  caused  a 
general  rise  of  temperature,  which  rarely  exceeded  a  degree 
Fahrenheit.  In  1870  the  indefatigable  Schiff  took  up  the 
subject,  experimenting  on  live  dogs  and  chickens  by  plung- 
ing thermo-electric  needles  into  the  substance  of  their 
brain.  After  habituation  was  established,  he  tested  the 
animals  with  various  sensations,  tactile,  optic,  olfactory. 
and  auditory.  He  found  very  regularly  an  abrupt  alter- 
ation of  the  intra-cerebral  temperature.  When,  for  instance, 
he  presented  an  empty  roll  of  paper  to  the  nose  of  his  dog 
as  it  lay  motionless,  there  was  a  small  deflection,  but  when 
a  piece  of.  meat  was  in  the  paper  the  deflection  was  much 
greater.  Schiff  concluded  from  these  and  other  experi- 
ments that  sensorial  activity  heats  the  brain-tissue,  but  he 
did  not  try  to  localize  the  increment  of  heat  beyond  finding 


132  PSYCHOLOGY, 

that  it  was  in  both  hemispheres,  whatever  might  be  the 
sensation  applied.  Dr.  Amidon  in  1880  made  a  farther 
step  forward,  in  localizing  the  heat  produced  by  voluntary- 
muscular  contractions.  Applying  a  number  of  delicate 
surface-thermometers  simultaneously  against  the  scalp,  he 
found  that  when  different  muscles  of  the  body  were  made 
to  contract  vigorously  for  ten  minutes  or  more,  different 
regions  of  the  scalp  rose  in  temperature,  that  the  regions 
were  well  focalized,  and  that  the  rise  of  temperature  was 
often  considerably  over  a  Fahrenheit  degree.  To  a  large 
extent  these  regions  correspond  to  the  centres  for  the  same 
movements  assigned  by  Ferrier  and  others  on  other  grounds; 
only  they  cover  more  of  the  skull. 

Phosphorus  and  Thought. — Considering  the  large  amount 
of  popular  nonsense  which  passes  current  on  this  subject  I 
may  be  pardoned  for  a  brief  mention  of  it  here.  'Ohne 
Phosphor,  kein  GedanJce,'  was  a  noted  war-cry  of  the  'ma- 
terialists' during  the  excitement  on  that  subject  which 
filled  Germany  in  the  '6'Os.  The  brain,  like  every  othei 
organ  of  the  body,  contains  phosphorus,  and  a  score  oi 
other  chemicals  besides.  Why  the  phosphorus  should  be 
picked  out  as  its  essence,  no  one  knows.  It  would  be 
equally  true  to  say,  '  Ohne  AVasser,  kein  Gedanke/  or  '  Ohne 
Kochsalz,  kein  Gedanke';  for  thought  would  stop  as 
quickly  if  the  brain  should  dry  up  or  lose  its  NaCl  as  if  it 
lost  its  phosphorus.  In  America  the  phosphorus-delusioD 
has  twined  itself  round  a  saying  quoted  (rightly  or  wrongly) 
from  Professor  L.  Agassiz,  to  the  effect  that  fishermen  art 
more  intelligent  than  farmers  because  they  eat  so  much 
fish,  which  contains  so  much  phosphorus.  All  the  alleged 
facts  may  be  doubted. 

The  only  straight  way  to  ascertain  the  importance  oi 
phosphorus  to  thought  would  be  to  find  whether  more  is 
excreted  by  the  brain  during  mental  activity  than  during 
rest.  Unfortunately  we  cannot  do  this  directly,  but  can 
only  gauge  the  amount  of  P06  in  the  urine,  and  this  pro- 
cedure has  been  adopted  by  a  variety  of  observers,  some  of 


GENERAL   CONDITIONS  OtT  NEURAL  ACTIVITY.   133 

whom  found  the  phosphates  in  the  urine  diminished, 
whilst  others  found  them  increased,  by  intellectual  work. 
On  the  whole,  it  is  impossible  to  trace  any  constant  rela- 
tion. In  maniacal  excitement  less  phosphorus  than  usual 
seems  to  be  excreted.  More  is  excreted  during  sleep.  The 
fact  that  phosphorus-preparations  may  do  good  in  nervous 
exhaustion  proves  nothing  as  to  the  part  played  by  phos- 
phorus in  mental  activity.  Like  iron,  arsenic,  and  other 
remedies  it  is  a  stimulant  or  tonic,  of  whose  intimate  work- 
ings in  the  system  we  know  absolutely  nothing,  and  which 
moreover  does  good  in  an  extremely  small  number  of  the 
cases  in  which  it  is  prescribed. 

The  phosphorus-philosophers  have  often  compared 
thought  to  a  secretion.  "  The  brain  secretes  thought,  as 
the  kidneys  secrete  urine,  or  as  the  liver  secretes  bile,"  are 
phrases  which  one  sometimes  hears.  The  lame  analogy 
need  hardly  be  pointed  out.  The  materials  which  the  brain 
potirs  into  the  blood  (cholesterin,  creatin,  xanthin,  or  what- 
ever they  may  be)  are  the  analogues  of  the  urine  and  the 
bile,  being  in  fact  real  material  excreta.  As  far  as  these 
matters  go,  the  brain  is  a  ductless  gland.  But  we  know  of 
nothing  connected  with  liver-  and  kidney-activity  which 
can  be  in  the  remotest  degree  compared  with  the  stream  of 
thought  that  accompanies  the  brain's  material  secretions. 


CHAPTER  X. 
HABIT. 

Its  Importance  for  Psychology. — There  remains  a  condi- 
tion of  general  neural  activity  so  important  as  to  deserve  a 
chapter  by  itself — I  refer  to  the  aptitude  of  the  nerve- 
centres,  especially  of  the  hemispheres,  for  acquiring  habits. 
An  acquired  habit,  from  the  physiological  point  of  view,  is 
nothing  but  a  new  pathway  of  discharge  formed  in  the 
brain,  by  which  certain  incoming  currents  ever  after  tend 
to  escape.  That  is  the  thesis  of  this  chapter;  and  we  shall 
see  in  the  later  and  more  psychological  chapters  that  such 
functions  as  the  association  of  ideas,  perception,  memory, 
reasoning,  the  education  of  the  will,  etc.  etc.,  can  best  be 
understood  as  results  of  the  formation  de  novo  of  just  such 
pathways  of  discharge. 

Habit  has  a  physical  basis.  The  moment  one  tries  to 
define  what  habit  is,  one  is  led  to  the  fundamental  proper- 
ties of  matter.  The  laws  of  Nature  are  nothing  but  the 
immutable  habits  which  the  different  elementary  sorts  of 
matter  follow  in  their  actions  and  reactions  upon  each 
other.  In  the  organic  world,  however,  the  habits  are  more 
variable  than  this.  Even  instincts  vary  from  one  individual 
to  another  of  a  kind;  and  are  modified  in  the  same  in- 
dividual, as  we  shall  later  see,  to  suit  the  exigencies  of  the 
case.  On  the  principles  of  the  atomistic  philosophy  the 
habits  of  an  elementary  particle  of  matter  cannot  change, 
because  the  particle  is  itself  an  unchangeable  thing;  but 
those  of  a  compound  mass  of  matter  can  change,  be- 
cause they  are  in  the  last  instance  due  to  the  structure  of 
the  compound,  and  either  outward  forces  or  inward  ten- 
sions can,  from  one  hour  to  another,  turn  that  structure 


HABIT.  135 

into  something  different  from  what  it  was.  That  is,  they 
can  do  so  if  the  hody  he  plastic  enough  to  maintain  its 
integrity,  and  he  not  disrupted  when  its  structure  yields. 
The  change  of  structure  here  spoken  of  need  not  involve 
the  outward  shape ;  it  may  be  invisible  and  molecular,  as 
when  a  bar  of  iron  becomes  magnetic  or  crystalline  through 
the  action  of  certain  outward  causes,  or  india-rubber'' 
becomes  friable,  or  plaster  'sets/  All  these  changes  are 
rather  slow;  the  material  in  question  opposes  a  certain 
resistance  to  the  modifying  cause,  which  it  takes  time  to 
overcome,  but  the  gradual  yielding  whereof  often  saves  the 
material  from  being  disintegrated  altogether.  When  the 
structure  has  yielded,  the  same  inertia  becomes  a  condition 
of  its  comparative  permanence  in  the  new  form,  and  of  the 
new  habits  the  body  then  manifests.  Plasticity,  then,  in 
the  wide  sense  of  the  word,  means  the  possession  of  a 
structure  weak  enough  to  yield  to  an  influence,  but  strong 
enough  not  to  yield  all  at  once.  Each  relatively  stable 
phase  of  equilibrium  in  such  a  structure  is  marked  by 
what  we  may  call  a  new  set  of  habits.  Organic  matter, 
especially  nervous  tissue,  seems  endowed  with  a  very  ex- 
traordinary degree  of  plasticity  of  this  sort;  so  that  we 
may  without  hesitation  lay  down  as  our  first  proposition 
the  following:  that  the  phenomena  of  habit  in  living  beings 
are  due  to  the  plasticity  of  the  organic  materials  of  which 
their  bodies  are  composed. 

The  philosophy  of  habit  is  thus,  in  the  first  instance, 
a  chapter  in  physics  rather  than  in  physiology  or  psychol- 
ogy. That  it  is  at  bottom  a  physical  principle,  is  admitted 
by  all  good  recent  writers  on  the  subject.  They  call  atten- 
tion to  analogues  of  acquired  habits  exhibited  by  dead 
matter.     Thus,  M.  Leon  Dumont  writes: 

"Every  one  knows  how  a  garment,  after  having  been 
worn  a  certain  time,  clings  to  the  shape  of  the  body  better 
than  when  it  was  new;  there  has  been  a  change  in  the 
tissue,  and  this  change  is  a  new  habit  of  cohesion.  A  lock 
works  better  after  being  used  some  time;  at  the  outset  more 


136  PSYCHOLOGY. 

force  was  required  to  overcome  certain  roughness  in  the 
mechanism.  The  overcoming  of  their  resistance  is  a  phe- 
nomenon of  habituation.  It  costs  less  trouble  to  fold  a 
paper  when  it  has  been  folded  already;  .  .  .  and  just  so  in 
the  nervous  system  the  impressions  of  outer  objects  fashion 
for  themselves  more  and  more  appropriate  paths,  and  these 
vital  phenomena  recur  under  similar  excitements  from 
without,  when  they  have  been  interrupted  a  certain  time/' 

Not  in  the  nervous  system  alone.  A  scar  anywhere  is 
a  locus  minor  is  resistentice,  more  liable  to  be  abraded, 
inflamed,  to  suffer  pain  and  cold,  than  are  the  neighboring 
parts.  A  sprained  ankle,  a  dislocated  arm,  are  in  danger 
of  being  sprained  or  dislocated  again;  joints  that  have  once 
been  attacked  by  rheumatism  or  gout,  mucous  membranes 
that  have  been  the  seat  of  catarrh,  are  with  each  fresh 
recurrence  more  prone  to  a  relapse,  until  often  the  morbid 
state  chronically  substitutes  itself  for  the  sound  one.  And 
in  the  nervous  system  itself  it  is  well  known  how  many  so- 
called  functional  diseases  seem  to  keep  themselves  going 
simply  because  they  happen  to  have  once  begun;  and  how 
the  forcible  cutting  short  by  medicine  of  a  few  attacks  is 
often  sufficient  to  enable  the  physiological  forces  to  get 
possession  of  the  field  again,  and  to  bring  the  organs  back 
to  functions  of  health.  Epilepsies,  neuralgias,  convulsive 
affections  of  various  sorts,  insomnias,  are  so  many  cases  in 
point.  And,  to  take  what  are  more  obviously  habits,  the 
success  with  which  a  'weaning*  treatment  can  often  be 
applied  to  the  victims  of  unhealthy  indulgence  of  passion, 
or  of  mere  complaining  or  irascible  disposition,  shows  us 
how  much  the  morbid  manifestations  themselves  were  due 
to  the  mere  inertia  of  the  nervous  organs,  when  once 
launched  on  a  false  career. 

Habits  are  due  to  pathways  through  the  nerve-centres. 
If  habits  are  due  to  the  plasticity  of  materials  to  outward 
agents,  we  can  immediately  see  to  what  outward  influences, 
if  to  any,  the  brain-matter  is  plastic.  Not  to  mechanical 
pressures,  not  to  thermal  changes,  not  to  any  of  the  forces 


HABIT.  137 

to  which  all  the  other  organs  of  our  body  are  exposed ;  for, 
as  we  saw  on  pp.  9-10,  Nature  has  so  blanketed  and  wrapped 
the  brain  about  that  the  only  impressions  that  can  be  made 
upon  it  are  through  the  blood,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
sensory  nerve-roots,  on  the  other;  and  it  is  to  the  infinitely 
attenuated  currents  that  pour  in  through  these  latter  chan- 
nels that  the  hemispherical  cortex  shows  itself  to  be  so 
peculiarly  susceptible.  The  currents,  once  in,  must  find  a 
way  out.  In  getting  out  they  leave  their  traces  in  the 
paths  which  they  take.  The  only  thing  they  can  do,  in 
short,  is  to  deepen  old  paths  or  to  make  new  ones ;  and  the 
whole  plasticity  of  the  brain  sums  itself  up  in  two  words 
when  we  call  it  an  organ  in  which  currents  pouring  in  from 
the  sense-organs  make  with  extreme  facility  paths  which 
do  not  easily  disappear.  For,  of  course,  a  simple  habit, 
like  every  other  nervous  event — the  habit  of  snuffling,  for 
example,  or  of  putting  one's  hands  into  one's  pockets,  or  of 
biting  one's  nails — is,  mechanically,  nothing  but  a  reflex 
discharge;  and  its  anatomical  substratum  must  be  a  path 
in  the  system.  The  most  complex  habits,  as  we  shall  pres- 
ently see  more  fully,  are,  from  the  same  point  of  view, 
nothing  but  concatenated  discharges  in  the  nerve-centres, 
due  to  the  presence  there  of  systems  of  reflex  paths,  so 
organized  as  to  wake  each  other  up  successively — the  im- 
pression produced  by  one  muscular  contraction  serving  as 
a  stimulus  to  provoke  the  next,  until  a  final  impression 
inhibits  the  process  and  closes  the  chain. 

It  must  be  noticed  that  the  growth  of  structural  modi- 
fication in  living  matter  may  be  more  rapid  than  in  any 
lifeless  mass,  because  the  incessant  nutritive  renovation  of 
which  the  living  matter  is  the  seat  tends  often  to  corrob- 
orate and  fix  the  impressed  modification,  rather  than  to 
counteract  it  by  renewing  the  original  constitution  of  the 
tissue  that  has  been  impressed.  Thus,  we  notice  after  ex- 
ercising our  muscles  or  our  brain  in  a  new  way,  that  we 
can  do  so  no  longer  at  that  time;  but  after  a  day  or  two 
of  rest,  when  we  resume  the  discipline,  our  increase  in  skill 


138  PSYCHOLOGY. 

not  seldom  surprises  us.  I  have  often  noticed  this  in 
learning  a  tune;  and  it  has  led  a  German  author  to  say  that 
we  learn  to  swim  during  the  winter,  and  to  skate  during 
the  summer. 

Practical  Effects  of  Habit. — First,  habit  simplifies  our 
movements,  makes  them  accurate,  and  diminishes  fatigue. 

Man  is  born  with  a  tendency  to  do  more  things  than  he 
has  ready-made  arrangements  for  in  his  nerve-centres. 
Most  of  the  performances  of  other  animals  are  automatic. 
But  in  him  the  number  of  them  is  so  enormous  that  most 
of  them  must  be  the  fruit  of  painful  study.  If  practice 
did  not  make  perfect,  nor  habit  economize  the  expense  of 
nervous  and  muscular  energy,  he  would  be  in  a  sorry  plight. 
As  Dr.  Maudsley  says :  * 

"  If  an  act  became  no  easier  after  being  done  several 
times,  if  the  careful  direction  of  consciousness  were  neces- 
sary to  its  accomplishment  on  each  occasion,  it  is  evident 
that  the  whole  activity  of  a  lifetime  might  be  confined  to 
one  or  two  deeds— that  no  progress  could  take  place  in 
development.  A  man  might  be  occupied  all  day  in  dress- 
ing and  undressing  himself;  the  attitude  of  his  body  would 
absorb  all  his  attention  and  energy;  the  washing  of  his 
hands  or  the  fastening  of  a  button  would  be  as  difficult  to 
him  on  each  occasion  as  to  the  child  on  its  first  trial;  and  he 
would,  furthermore,  be  completely  exhausted  by  his  exer- 
tions. Think  of  the  pains  necessary  to  teach  a  child  to 
-stand,  of  the  many  efforts  which  it  must  make,  and  of  the 
ease  with  which  it  at  last  stands,  unconscious  of  any  effort. 
For  while  secondarily-automatic  acts  are  accomplished  with 
comparatively  little  weariness — in  this  regard  approaching 
the  organic  movements,  or  the  original  reflex  movements — 
the  conscious  effort  of  the  will  soon  produces  exhaustion. 
A  spinal  cord  without  .  .  .  memory  would  simply  be  an 
idiotic  spinal  cord.  ...  It  is  impossible  for  an  individual 

*  The  Physiology  of  Mind,  p.  155. 


HABIT.  139 

to  realize  how  much  he  owes  to  its  automatic  agency  until 
disease  has  impaired  its  functions." 

Secondly,  habit  diminishes  the  conscious  attention  with 
which  our  acts  are  performed. 

One  may  state  this  abstractly  thus :  If  an  act  require  for 
its  execution  a  chain,  A,  B,  C,  D<,  E,  F,  G,  etc.,  of  success- 
ive nervous  events,  then  in  the  first  performances  of  the 
action  the  conscious  will  must  choose  each  of  these  events 
from  a  number  of  wrong  alternatives  that  tend  to  present 
themselves;  but  habit  soon  brings  it  about  that  each  event 
calls  up  its  own  appropriate  successor  without  any  alterna- 
tive offering  itself,  and  without  any  reference  to  the  con- 
scious will,  until  at  last  the  whole  chain,  A,  B,  C,  D,  E,  F,  G, 
rattles  itself  off  as  soon  as  A  occurs,  just  as  if  A  and  the 
rest  of  the  chain  were  fused  into  a  continuous  stream. 
Whilst  we  are  learning  to  walk,  to  ride,  to  swim,  skate, 
fence,  write,  play,  or  sing,  we  interrupt  ourselves  at  every 
step  by  unnecessary  movements  and  false  notes.  When 
we  are  proficients,  on  the  contrary,  the  results  follow  not 
only  with  the  very  minimum  of  muscular  action  requisite 
to  bring  them  forth,  but  they  follow  from  a  single  instan- 
taneous '  cue.'  The  marksman  sees  the  bird,  and,  before 
he  knows  it,  he  has  aimed  and  shot.  A  gleam  in  his 
adversary's  eye,  a  momentary  pressure  from  his  rapier,  and 
the  fencer  finds  that  he  has  instantly  made  the  right  parry 
and  return.  '  A  glance  at  the  musical  hieroglyphics,  and 
the  pianist's  fingers  have  rippled  through  a  shower  of 
notes.  And  not  only  is  it  the  right  thing  at  the  right 
time  that  we  thus  involuntarily  do,  but  the  wrong  thing 
also,  if  it  be  an  habitual  thing.  Who  is  there  that  has 
never  wound  up  his  watch  on  taking  off  his  waistcoat  in 
the  daytime,  or  taken  his  latch-key  out  on  arriving  at  the 
door-step  of  a  friend  ?  Persons  in  going  to  their  bed- 
room to  dress  for  dinner  have  been  known  to  take  off  one 
garment  after  another  and  finally  to  get  into  bed,  merely 
because  that  was  the  habitual  issue  of  the  first  few  move- 
ments when  performed  at  a  later-  hour,     We  all  have  a 


140  PSYCHOLOGY. 

definite  routine  manner  of  performing  certain  daily  offices 
connected  with  the  toilet,  with  the  opening  and  shutting  of 
familiar  cupboards,  and  the  like.  But  our  higher  thought- 
centres  know  hardly  anything  about  the  matter.  Few  men 
can  tell  off-hand  which  sock,  shoe,  or  trousers-leg  they  put 
on  first.  They  must  first  mentally  rehearse  the  act;  and 
even  that  is  often  insufficient — the  act  must  he  performed. 
So  of  the  questions,  Which  valve  of  the  shutters  opens 
first  ?  Which  way  does  my  door  swing  ?  etc.  I  cannot 
tell  the  answer;  yet  my  hand  never  makes  a  mistake.  No 
one  can  describe  the  order  in  which  he  brushes  his  hair  or 
teeth;  yet  it  is  likely  that  the  order  is  a  pretty  fixed  one 
in  all  of  us. 

These  results  may  be  expressed  as  follows: 
In  action  grown  habitual,  what  instigates  each  new  mus- 
cular contraction  to  take  place  in  its  appointed  order  is 
not  a  thought  or  a  perception,  but  the  sensation  occasioned 
by  the  muscular  contraction  just  finished.  A  strictly  vol- 
untary act  has  to  be  guided  by  idea,  perception,  and  voli- 
tion, throughout  its  whole  course.  In  habitual  action, 
mere  sensation  is  a  sufficient  guide,  and  the  upper  regions 
of  brain  and  mind  are  set  comparatively  free.  A  diagram 
will  make  the  matter  clear: 


Let  A,  B,  C,  D,  E,  F,  G  represent  an  habitual  chain  of 
muscular  contractions,  and  let  a,  b,  c,  d,  e,  /stand  for  the 
several  sensations  which  these  contractions  excite  in  us 
when  they  are  successively  performed.     Such  sensations 


HABIT.  141 

will  usually  be  in  the  parts  moved,  but  they  may  also  be 
effects  of  the  movement  upon  the  eye  or  the  ear.  Through 
them,  and  through  them  alone,  we  are  made  aware  whether 
or  not  the  contraction  has  occurred.  When  the  series, 
A,  B,  C,  D,  E,  F,  G,  is  being  learned,  each  of  these  sensa- 
tions becomes  the  object  of  a  separate  act  of  attention  by  the 
mind.  We  test  each  movement  intellectually,  to  see  if  it 
have  been  rightly  performed,  before  advancing  to  the  next. 
We  hesitate,  compare,  choose,  revoke,  reject,  etc.;  and  the 
order  by  which  the  next  movement  is  discharged  is  an 
express  order  from  the  ideational  centres  after  this  delib- 
eration has  been  gone  through. 

In  habitual  action,  on  the  contrary,  the  only  impulse 
which  the  intellectual  centres  need  send  down  is  that  which 
carries  the  command  to  start.  This  is  represented  in  the 
diagram  by  V;  it  may  be  a  thought  of  the  first  movement 
or  of  the  last  result,  or  a  mere  perception  of  some  of  the 
habitual  conditions  of  the  chain,  the  presence,  e.g.,  of  the 
keyboard  near  the  hand.  In  the  present  example,  no 
sooner  has  this  conscious  thought  or  volition  instigated 
movement  A,  than  A,  through  the  sensation  a  of  its  own 
occurrence,  awakens  B  reflexly;  B  then  excites  C  through 
b,  and  so  on  till  the  chain  is  ended,  when  the  intellect 
generally  takes  cognizance  of  the  final  result.  The  intel- 
lectual perception  at  the  end  is  indicated  in  the  diagram 
by  the  sensible  effect  of  the  movement  G  being  represented 
at  G',  in  the  ideational  centres  above  the  merely  sensational 
line.  The  sensational  impressions,  a,  b,  c,  d,  e,f,  are  all 
supposed  to  have  their  seat  below  the  ideational  level. 

Habits  depend  on  sensations  not  attended  to.  We  have 
called  a,  b,  c,  d,  e,  f,  by  the  name  of  '  sensations/  If 
sensations,  they  are  sensations  to  which  we  are  usually 
inattentive;  but  that  they  are  more  than  unconscious 
nerve-currents  seems  certain,  for  they  catch  our  attention 
if  they  go  wrong.  Schneider's  account  of  these  sensations 
deserves  to  be  quoted.  In  the  act  of  walking,  he  says, 
even  when  our  attention  is  entirely  absorbed  elsewhere, 


142  PSYCHOLOGY. 

it  is  doubtful  whether  we  could  preserve  equilibrium  if 
no  sensation  of  our  body's  attitude  were  there,  and  doubt- 
ful whether  we  should  advance  our  leg  if  we  had  no 
sensation  of  its  movement  as  executed,  and  not  even  a 
minimal  feeling  of  impulse  to  set  it  down.  Knitting 
appears  altogether  mechanical,  and  the  knitter  keeps  up 
her  knitting  even  while  she  reads  or  is  engaged  in  lively 
talk.  But  if  we  ask  her  how  this  is  possible,  she  will 
hardly  reply  that  the  knitting  goes  on  of  itself.  She  will 
rather  say  that  she  has  a  feeling  of  it,  that  she  feels  in  her 
hands  that  she  knits  and  how  she  must  knit,  and  that 
therefore  the  movements  of  knitting  are  called  forth  and 
regulated  by  the  sensations  associated  therewithal,  even 
when  the  attention  is  called  away.  .  .  ."  Again:  "  When  a 
pupil  begins  to  play  on  the  violin,  to  keep  him  from  rais- 
ing his  right  elbow  in  playing  a  book  is  placed  under  his 
right  armpit,  which  he  is  ordered  to  hold  fast  by  keeping 
the  upper  arm  tight  against  his  body.  The  muscular  feel- 
ings, and  feelings  of  contact  connected  with  the  book,  pro- 
voke an  impulse  to  press  it  tight.  But  often  it  happens 
that  the  beginner,  whose  attention  gets  absorbed  in  the 
production  of  the  notes,  lets  drop  the  book.  Later,  how- 
ever, this  never  happens;  the  faintest  sensations  of  contact 
suffice  to  awaken  the  impulse  to  keep  it  in  its  place,  and 
the  attention  may  be  wholly  absorbed  by  the  notes  and  the 
fingering  with  the  left  hand.  The  simultaneous  combina- 
tion of  movements  is  thus  in  the  first  instance  conditioned 
by  the  facility  with  which  in  us,  alongside  of  intellectual 
processes,  processes  of  inattentive  feeling  may  still  go  on." 
Ethical  and  Pedagogical  Importance  of  the  Principle  of 
Habit. — "Habit  a  second  nature!  Habit  is  ten  times  na- 
ture," the  Duke  of  Wellington  is  said  to  have  exclaimed; 
and  the  degree  to  which  this  is  true  no  one  probably  can 
appreciate  as  well  as  one  who  is  a  veteran  soldier  himself. 
The  daily  drill  and  the  years  of  discipline  end  by  fashion- 
ing a  man  completely  over  again,  as  to  most  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  his  conduct. 


HABIT.  143 

"  There  is  a  story,"  says  Prof.  Huxley,  "  which  is  credi- 
ble enough,  though  it  may  not  be  true,  of  a  practical  joker 
who,  seeing  a  discharged  veteran  carrying  home  his  dinner, 
suddenly  called  out,  'Attention!'  whereupon  the  man  in- 
stantly brought  his  hands  down,  and  lost  his  mutton  and 
potatoes  in  the  gutter.  The  drill  had  been  thorough,  and 
its  effects  had  become  embodied  in  the  man's  nervous 
structure." 

Riderless  cavalry-horses,  at  many  a  battle,  have  been  seen 
to  come  together  and  go  through  their  customary  evolu- 
tions at  the  sound  of  the  bugle-call.  Most  domestic  beasts 
seem  machines  almost  pure  and  simple,  undoubtingly,  un- 
hesitatingly doing  from  minute  to  minute  the  duties  they 
have  been  taught,  and  giving  no  sign  that  the  possibility 
of  an  alternative  ever  suggests  itself  to  their  mind.  Men 
grown  old  in  prison  have  asked  to  be  readmitted  after  be- 
ing once  set  free.  In  a  railroad  accident  a  menagerie-tiger, 
whose  cage  had  broken  open,  is  said  to  have  emerged,  but 
presently  crept  back  again,  as  if  too  much  bewildered  by 
his  new  responsibilities,  so  that  he  was  without  difficulty 
secured. 

J  Habit  is  thus  the  enormous  fly-wheel  of  society,  its  most 
precious  conservative  agent.  It  alone  is  what  keeps  us  all 
within  the  bounds  of  ordinance,  and  saves  the  children  of 
fortune  from  the  envious  uprisings  of  the  poor.  It  alone 
prevents  the  hardest  and  most  repulsive  walks  of  life  from 
being  deserted  by  those  brought  up  to  tread  therein.  It 
keeps  the  fisherman  and  the  deck-hand  at  sea  through  the 
winter;  it  holds  the  miner  in  his  darkness,  and  nails  the 
countryman  to  his  log-cabin  and  his  lonely  farm  through 
all  the  months  of  snow ;  it  protects  us  from  invasion  by  the 
natives  of  the  desert  and  the  frozen  zone.  It  dooms  us  all 
to  fight  out  the  battle  of  life  upc.i  the  lines  of  our  nurture 
or  our  early  choice,  and  to  make  the  best  of  a  pursuit  that 
disagrees,  because  there  is  no  other  for  which  we  are  fitted, 
and  it  is  too  late  to  begin  again.  It  keeps  different  social 
strata  from  mixing.    Already  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  you 


144  PSTCHOLOG  Y. 

see  the  professional  mannerism  settling  down  on  the  young 
commercial  traveller,  on  the  young  doctor,  on  the  young 
minister,  on  the  young  counsellor-at-law.  You  see  the  little 
lines  of  cleavage  running  through  the  character,  the  tricks 
of  thought,  the  prejudices,  the  ways  of  the  'shop,'  in  a 
word,  from  which  the  man  can  hy-and-by  no  more  escape 
than  his  coat-sleeve  can  suddenly  fall  into  a  new  set  of 
folds.  On  the  whole,  it  is  best  he  should  not  escape.  It 
is  well  for  the  world  that  in  most  of  us,  by  the  age  of  thirty, 
the  character  has  set  like  plaster,  and  will  never  soften 
again. 

If  the  period  between  twenty  and  thirty  is  the  critical 
one  in  the  formation  of  intellectual  and  professional  habits, 
the  period  below  twenty  is  more  important  still  for  the  fix- 
ing of  personal  habits,  properly  so  called,  such  as  vocaliza- 
tion and  pronunciation,  gesture,  motion,  and  address. 
Hardly  ever  is  a  language  learned  after  twenty  spoken 
without  a  foreign  accent;  hardly  ever  can  a  youth  trans- 
ferred to  the  society  of  his  betters  unlearn  the  nasality  and 
other  vices  of  speech  bred  in  him  by  the  associations  of 
his  growing  years.  Hardly  ever,  indeed,  no  matter  how 
much  money  there  be  in  his  pocket,  can  he  even  learn  to 
dress  like  a  gentleman-born.  The  merchants  offer  their 
wares  as  eagerly  to  him  as  to  the  veriest  'swell,'  but  he 
simply  cannot  buy  the  right  things.  An  invisible  law,  as 
strong  as  gravitation,  keeps  him  within  his  orbit,  arrayed 
this  year  as  he  was  the  last;  and  how  his  better-clad 
acquaintances  contrive  to  get  the  things  they  wear  will  be 
for  him  a  mystery  till  his  dying  day. 

The  great  thing,  then,  in  all  education,  is  to  make  our 
nervous  system  our  ally  instead  of  our  enemy.  It  is  to  fund 
and  capitalize  our  acquisitions,  and  live  at  ease  upon  the 
interest  of  the  fund.  For  this  ice  must  make  automatic  and 
habitual,  as  early  as  possible,  as  many  useful  actions  as  ive 
can,  and  guard  against  the  growing  into  ways  that  are  likely 
to  be  disadvantageous  to  us,  as  we  should  guard  against 
the  plague.     The  more  of  the  details  of  our  daily  life  we 


HABIT.  •   145 

pan  hand  over  to  the  effortless  custody  of  automatism,  the 
more  our  higher  powers  of  mind  will  be  set  free  for  their 
own  proper  work.  There  is  no  more  miserable  human  be- 
ing than  one  in  whom  nothing  is  habitual  but  indecision, 
and  for  whom  the  lighting  of  every  cigar,  the  drinking  of 
every  cup,  the  time  of  rising  and  going  to  bed  every  day, 
and  the  beginning  of  every  bit  of  work,  are  subjects  of  ex- 
press volitional  deliberation.  Full  half  the  time  of  such  a 
man  goes  to  the  deciding,  or  regretting,  of  matters  which 
ought  to  be  so  ingrained  in  him  as  practically  not  to  exist 
for  his  consciousness  at  all.  If  there  be  such  daily  duties 
not  yet  ingrained  in  any  one  of  my  readers,  let  him  begin 
this  very  hour  to  set  the  matter  right. 

In  Professor  Bain's  chapter  on  "The  Moral  Habits' 
there  are  some  admirable  practical  remarks  laid  down. 
Two  great  maxims  emerge  from  his  treatment.  The  first 
is  that  in  the  acquisition  of  a  new  habit,  or  the  leaving  off 
of  an  old  one,  we  must  take  care  to  launch  ourselves  with  as 
strong  and  decided  an  initiative  as  possible.  Accumulate 
all  the  possible  circumstances  which  shall  re-enforce  the 
right  motives;  put  yourself  assiduously  in  conditions  that 
encourage  the  new  way;  make  engagements  incompatible 
with  the  old;  take  a  public  pledge,  if  the  case  allows;  in 
short,  envelop  your  resolution  with  every  aid  you  know. 
This  will  give  your  new  beginning  such  a  momentum  that 
the  temptation  to  break  down  will  not  occur  as  soon  as  it 
otherwise  might;  and  every  day  during  which  a  break- 
down is  postponed  adds  to  the  chances  of  its  not  occurring 
at  all. 

The  second  maxim  is:  Never  suffer  an  exception  to  occur 
till  the  new  habit  is  securely  rooted  in  your  life.  Each 
lapse  is  like  the  letting  fall  of  a  ball  of  string  which  one  is 
carefully  winding  up;  a  single  slip  undoes  more  than  a 
great  many  turns  will  wind  again.  Continuity  of  training 
is  the  great  means  of  making  the  nervous  system  act  infal- 
libly right.     As  Professor  Bain  says  : 

"  The  peculiarity  of  the  moral  habits,  contradistinguish- 


146  PSYCHOLOGY. 

ing  them  from  (lie  intellectual  acquisitions,  is  the  presence 
of  two  hostile  powers,  one  to  be  gradually  raised  into  the 
ascendant  over  the  other.  It  is  necessary,  above  all  things, 
in  such  a  situation,  never  to  lose  a  battle.  Every  gain  on 
the  wrong  side  undoes  the  effect  of  many  conquests  on  the 
right.  The  essential  precaution,  therefore,  is  so  to  regulate 
the  two  opposing  powers  that  the  one  may  have  a  series  of 
uninterrupted  successes,  until  repetition  has  fortified  it  to 
smh  a  degree  as  to  enable  it  to  cope  with  the  opposition, 
under  any  circumstances.  This  is  the  theoretically  best 
career  of  mental  progress." 

The  need  of  securing  success  at  the  outset  is  imperative. 
Failure  at  first  is  apt  to  damp  the  energy  of  all  future  at- 
tempts, whereas  past  experiences  of  success  nerve  one  to 
future  vigor.  Goethe  savs  to  a  man  who  consulted  him 
about  an  enterprise  but  mistrusted  his  own  powers:  "Ach  ! 
you  need  only  blow  on  your  hands  ! "  And  the  remark 
illustrates  the  effect  on  Goethe's  spirits  of  his  own  habitu- 
ally successful  career. 

The  question  of  "  tapering-off,"  in  abandoning  such  habits 
as  drink  and  opium-indulgence  comes  in  here,  and  is  a 
question  about  which  experts  differ  within  certain  limits, 
and  in  regard  to  what  may  be  best  for  an  individual  case. 
In  the  main,  however,  all  expert  opinion  would  agree  that 
abrupt  acquisition  of  the  new  habit  is  the  best  way,  if  there 
be  a  real  possibility  of  carrying  it  out.  We  must  be  care- 
ful not  to  give  the  will  so  stiff  a  task  as  to  insure  its  defeat 
at  the  very  outset;  but,  provided  one  can  stand  it,  a  sharp 
period  of  suffering,  and  then  a  free  time,  is  the  best  thing 
to  aim  at.  whether  in  giving  up  a  habit  like  that  of  opium, 
Hi1  in  simply  changing  one's  hours  of  rising  or  of  work.  It 
is  surprising  how  soon  a  desire  will  die  of  inanition  if  it  be 
never  fed. 

"One  must  first  learn,  unmoved,  looking  neither  to  the 
right  nor  left,  to  walk  firmly  on  the  strait  and  narrow 
path,  before  one  can  begin  '  to  make  one's  self  over  again.' 
lie  who  every  day  makes  a  fresh  resolve  is  like  one  who, 


HABIT.  14? 

arriving  at  the  edge  of  the  ditch  he  is  to  leap,  forever  stops 
and  returns  for  a  fresh  run.  Without  unbroken  advance 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  accumulation  of  the  ethical  forces 
possible,  and  to  make  this  possible,  and  to  exercise  us  and 
habituate  us  in  it,  is  the  sovereign  blessing  of  regular 
work."  * 

A  third  maxim  may  be  added  to  the  preceding  pair: 
Seize  the  very  first  possible  opportunity  to  acton  every  reso- 
lution you  make,  and  on  every  emotional  prompting  you 
may  experience  in  the  direction  of  the  habits  you  aspire 
to  gain.  It  is  not  in  the  moment  of  their  forming,  but  in 
the  moment  of  their  producing  motor  effects,  that  resolves 
and  aspirations  communicate  the  new  '  set '  to  the  brain, 
As  the  author  last  quoted  remarks: 

"The  actual  presence  of  the  practical  opportunity  alone 
furnishes  the  fulcrum  upon  which  the  lever  can  rest,  by 
means  of  which  the  moral  will  may  multiply  its  strength, 
and  raise  itself  aloft.  He  who  has  no  solid  ground  to 
press  against  will  never  get  beyond  the  stage  of  empty 
gesture -making." 

No  matter  how  full  a  reservoir  of  maxims  one  may  pos- 
sess, and  no  matter  how  good  one's  sentiments  may  be,  if 
one  have  not  taken  advantage  of  every  concrete  opportu- 
nity to  act,  one's  character  may  remain  entirely  unaffected 
for  the  better.  With  mere  good  intentions,  hell  io  pro- 
verbially paved.  And  this  is  an  obvious  consequence  of 
the  principles  we  have  laid  down.  A  '  character/  as  J.  S. 
Mill  says,  'is  a  completely  fashioned  will';  and  a  will,  in 
the  sense  in  which  he  means  it,  is  an  aggregate  of  tenden- 
cies to  act  in  a  firm  and  prompt  and  definite  way  upon  all 
the  principal  emergencies  of  life.  A  tendency  to  act  only 
becomes  effectively  ingrained  in  us  in  proportion  to  the 
uninterrupted  frequency  with  which  the  actions  actually 
occur,  and  the  brain  '  grows '  to  their  use.  When  a  resolve 
or  a  fine  glow  of  feeling  is  allowed  to  evaporate  without 

*  J.  Bahnsen  :  '  Beitrage  zu  Charakterologie '  (1867),  vol.  I.  p.  20ft. 


148  pBvcnoLoar. 

bearing  practical  fruit  it  is  worse,  than  a  chance  lost;  it 
works  so  as  positively  to  hinder  future  resolutions  and  emo- 
tions from  taking  the  normal  path  of  discharge.  There  is 
no  more  contemptible  type  of  human  character  than  that 
of  the  nerveless  sentimentalist  and  dreamer,  who  spends  his 
life  in  a  weltering  sea  of  sensibility  and  emotion,  but  who 
never  does  a  manly  concrete  deed.  Rousseau,  inflaming 
all  the  mothers  of  France,  by  his  eloquence,  to  follow 
Nature  and  nurse  their  babies  themselves,  while  he  sends 
his  own  children  to  the  foundling  hospital,  is  the  classical 
example  of  what  I  mean.  But  every  one  of  us  in  his 
measure,  whenever,  after  glowing  for  an  abstractly  formu- 
lated Good,  he  practically  ignores  some  actual  case,  among 
the  squalid  'other  particulars' of  which  that  same  Good 
lurks  disguised,  treads  straight  on  Rsusseau's  path.  All 
Goods  are  disguised  by  the  vulgarity  of  their  concomitants, 
in  this  work-a-day  world;  but  woe  to  him  who  can  only 
recognize  them  when  he  thinks  them  in  their  pure  and 
abstract  form  !  The  habit  of  excessive  novel-reading  and 
theatre-going  will  produce  true  monsters  in  this  line.  The 
weeping  of  the  Russian  lady  over  the  fictitious  personages 
in  the  play,  while  her  coachman  is  freezing  to  death 
on  his  seat  outside,  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  everywhere 
happens  on  a  less  glaring  scale.  Even  the  habit  of  exces- 
sive indulgence  in  music,  for  those  who  are  neither  per- 
formers themselves  nor  musically  gifted  enough  to  take  it 
in  a  purely  intellectual  way,  has  probably  a  relaxing  effect 
upon  the  character.  One  becomes  filled  with  emotions 
which  habitually  pass  without  prompting  to  any  deed,  and 
so  the  inertly  sentimental  condition  is  kept  up.  The 
remedy  would  be,  never  to  suffer  one's  self  to  have  an  emo- 
tion at  a  concert,  without  expressing  it  afterward  in  some 
active  way.  Let  the  expression  be  the  least  thing  in  the 
world — speaking  genially  to  one's  grandmother,  or  giving 
up  one's  seat  in  a  horse-car,  if  nothing  more  heroic  offers 
■ — but  let  it  not  fail  to  take  place. 

These  latter  cases  make  us  aware  that  it  is  not-  simply 


11 A  BIT.  149 

particular  lines  of  discharge,  but  also  general  forms  of 
discharge,  that  seem  to  be  grooved  out  by  habit  in  the 
brain.  Just  as,  if  we  let  our  emotions  evaporate,  they  get 
into  a  way  of  evaporating;  so  there  is  reason  to  suppose 
that  if  we  often  flinch  from  making  an  effort,  before  we 
know  it  the  effort-making  capacity  will  be  gone;  and  that, 
if  we  suffer  the  wandering  of  our  attention,  presently  it 
will  wander  all  the  time.  Attention  and  effort  are,  as  we 
shall  see  later,  but  two  names  for  the  same  psychic  fact. 
To  what  brain-processes  they  correspond  we  do  not  know. 
The  strongest  reason  for  believing  that  they  do  depend  on 
brain-processes  at  all,  and  are  not  pure  acts  of  the  spirit,  is 
just  this  fact,  that  they  seem  in  some  degree  subject  to  the 
law  of  habit,  which  is  a  material  law.  As  a  final  practical 
maxim,  relative  to  these  habits  of  the  will,  we  may,  then, 
offer  something  like  this:  Keep  the  faculty  of effort  alive 
in  you  by  a  little  gratuitous  exercise  every  day.  That  is, 
be  systematically  ascetic  or  heroic  in  little  unnecessary 
points,  do  every  day  or  two  something  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  you  would  rather  not  do  it,  so  that  when  the 
hour  of  dire  need  draws  nigh,  it  may  find  you  not  unnerved 
and  untrained  to  stand  the  test.  Asceticism  of  this  sort  is 
like  the  insurance  which  a  man  pays  on  his  house  and 
goods.  The  tax  does  him  no  good  at  the  time,  and  possibly 
may  never  bring  him  a  return.  But  if  the  fire  does  come, 
his  having  paid  it  will  be  his  salvation  from  ruin.  So  with 
the  man  who  has  daily  inured  himself  to  habits  of  concen- 
trated attention,  energetic  volition,  and  self-denial  in  un- 
necessary things.  He  will  stand  like  a  tower  when  every- 
thing rocks  around  him,  and  when  his  softer  fellow-mortals 
are  winnowed  like  chaff  in  the  blast. 

The  physiological  study  of  mental  conditions  is  thus  the 
most  powerful  ally  of  hortatory  ethics.  The  hell  to  be 
endured  hereafter,  of  which  theology  tells,  is  no  worse  than 
the  hell  we  make  for  ourselves  in  this  world  by  habitually 
fashioning  our  characters  in  the  wrong  way.  Could  the 
young  but  realize  how  soon  they  will  become  mere  walking 


150  psrciiOLOor 

bundles  of  habits,  they  would  give  more  heed  to  their  con- 
duct while  in  the  plastic  state.  We  are  spinning  our  own 
fates,  good  or  evil,  and  never  to  be  undone.  Every  small- 
est stroke  of  virtue  or  of  vice  leaves  its  never  so  little  scar. 
The  drunken  Rip  Van  Winkle,  in  Jefferson's  play,  excuses 
himself  for  every  fresh  dereliction  by  saying,  'I  won't  count 
this  time! '  Well !  ho  may  not  count  it,  and  a  kind  Heave?) 
may  not  count  it;  but  it  is  being  counted  none  the  less. 
Down  among  his  nerve-cells  and  fibres  the  molecules  are 
counting  it,  registering  and  storing  it  up  to  be  used  against 
him  when  the  next  temptation  comes.  Nothing  we  ever 
do  is,  in  strict  scientific  literalness,  wiped  out.  Of  course 
this  has  its  good  side  as  well  as  its  bad  one.  As  we  become 
permanent  drunkards  by  so  many  separate  drinks,  so  we 
become  saints  in  the  moral,  and  authorities  and  experts  in 
the  practical  and  scientific  spheres,  by  so  many  separate 
acts  and  hours  of  work.  Let  no  youth  have  any  anxiety 
about  the  upshot  of  his  education,  whatever  the  line  of  it 
may  be.  If  he  keep  faithfully  busy  each  hour  of  the  work- 
ing day,  he  may  safely  leave  the  final  result  to  itself.  He 
can  with  perfect  certainty  count  on  waking  up  some  fine 
morning,  to  find  himself  one  of  the  competent  ones  of  his 
generation,  in  whatever  pursuit  he  may  have  singled  out. 
Silently,  between  all  the  details  of  his  business,  the  power 
of  judging  in  all  that  class  of  matter  will  have  built  itself 
up  within  him  as  a  possession  that  will  never  pass  away. 
Young  people  should  know  this  truth  in  advance.  The 
ignorance  of  it  has  probably  engendered  more  discourage- 
ment and  faint-heartedness  in  youths  embarking  on  ardu 
ous  careers  than  all  other  causes  put  together. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  STREAM  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS. 

The  order  of  our  study  must  be  analytic.  We  are  now 
prepared  to  begi.i  the  introspective  study  of  the  adult  con 
sciousness  itself.  Most  books  adopt  the  so-called  synthetic 
method.  Starting  with  '  simple  ideas  of  sensation/  and  re- 
garding these  as  so  many  atoms,  they  proceed  to  build  up 
the  higher  states  of  mind  out  of  their  'association,'  'inte- 
gration/ or  'fusion,'  as  houses  are  built  by  the  agglutina- 
tion of  bricks.  This  has  the  didactic  advantages  which  the 
synthetic  method  usually  has.  But  it  commits  one  before- 
hand to  the  very  questionable  theory  that  our  higher  states 
of  consciousness  are  compounds  of  units;  and  instead  of 
starting  with  what  the  reader  directly  knows,  namely  his 
total  concrete  states  of  mind,  it  starts  with  a  set  of  supposed 
'  simple  ideas '  with  which  he  has  no  immediate  acquaint- 
ance at  all,  and  concerning  whose  alleged  interactions  he  is 
much  at  the  mercy  of  any  plausible  phrase.  On  every 
ground,  then,  the  method  of  advancing  from  the  simple  to 
the  compound  exposes  us  to  illusion.  All  pedants  and 
abstractionists  will  naturally  hate  to  abandon  it.  But  a 
student  who  loves  the  fulness  of  human  nature  will  prefer 
to  follow  the  '  analytic '  method,  and  to  begin  with  the 
most  concrete  facts,  those  with  which  he  has  a  daily  ac- 
quaintance in  his  own  inner  life.  The  analytic  method 
will  discover  in  due  time  the  elementary  parts,  if  such 
exist,  without  danger  of  precipitate  assumption.  The 
reader  will  bear  in  mind  that  our  own  chapters  on  sensation 
have  dealt  mainly  with  the  physiological  conditions  there- 
of. They  were  put  first  ;is  a  mere  matter  of  convenience, 
because  incoming  currents  come  first.  Psychologically 
they  might  better  have  come  last.     Pure  sensations  wen 


152  PSYCHOLOGY. 

described  on  page  12  as  processes  which  in  aduty  life  are 
well-nigh  unknown,  and  nothing  was  said  which  could  for 
a  moment  lead  the  reader  to  suppose  that  they  were  the 
elements  of  composition  of  the  higher  states  of  mind. 

The  Fundamental  Fact. — The  first  and  foremost  concrete 
fact  which  every  one  will  affirm  to  belong  to  his  inner  ex- 
perience is  the  fact  that  consciousness  of  some  sort  goes  on. 
■  States  if  mind'  succeed  each  other  in  Mm.  If  we  could 
say  in  English  « it  thinks,'  as  we  say  'it  rains'  or  '  it  blows/ 
we  should  be  stating  the  fact  most  simply  and  with  the 
minimum  of  assumption.  As  we  cannot,  we  must  simply 
say  that  thought  goes  on. 

Four  Characters  in  Consciousness. — How  does  it  go  on  ? 
AVe  notice  immediately  four  important  characters  in  the 
process,  of  which  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  present  chap- 
ter to  treat  in  a  general  way: 

1)  Every  'state'  tends  to  be  part  of  a  personal  con- 
sciousness. 

2)  Within  each  personal  consciousness  states  are  always 
changing. 

3)  Each  personal  consciousness  is  sensibly  continuous. 

4)  It  is  interested  in  some  parts  of  its  object  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  others,  and  welcomes  or  rejects— chooses  from 
among  them,  in  a  word — all  the  while. 

In  considering  these  four  points  successively,  we  shall 
have  to  plunge  in  medias  res  as  regards  our  nomencla- 
ture and  use  psychological  terms  which  can  only  be  ade- 
quately defined  in  later  chapters  of  the  book.  But  every 
one  knows  what  the  terms  mean  in  a  rough  way;  and  it  is 
only  in  a  rough  way  that  we  are  now  to  take  them.  This 
chapter  is  like  a  painter's  first  charcoal  sketch  upon  his 
canvas,  in  which  no  niceties  appear. 

When  I  say  every  '  state '  or  '  thought '  is  part  of  a  personal 
consciousness,  'personal  consciousness'  is  one  of  the  terms 
in  question.  Its  meaning  we  know  so  long  as  no  one  asks 
us  to  define  it,  but  to  give  an  accurate  account  of  it  is  the 
most   difficult  of  philosophic   tasks.     This  task  we  must 


THE  STREAM  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS.  153 

confront  in  the  next  chapter;  here  a  preliminary  word  will 
suffice. 

In  this  room — this  lecture-room,  say — there  are  a  multi- 
tude of  thoughts,  yours  and  mine,  some  of  which  cohere 
mutually,  and  some  not.  They  are  as  little  each-for-itself 
and  reciprocally  independent  as  they  are  all-belonging- 
together.  They  are  neither:  no  one  of  them  is  separate, 
but  each  belongs  with  certain  others  and  with  none  beside. 
My  thought  belongs  with  my  other  thoughts,  and  your 
thought  with  your  other  thoughts.  Whether  anywhere  in 
the  room  there  be  a  mere  thought,  which  is  nobody's 
thought,  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining,  for  we  have  no 
experience  of  its  like.  The  only  states  of  consciousness 
that  we  naturally  deal  with  are  found  in  personal  con- 
sciousnesses, minds,  selves,  concrete  particular  I's  and 
you's. 

Each  of  these  minds  keeps  its  own  thoughts  to  itself. 
There  is  no  giving  or  bartering  between  them.  No  thought 
even  comes  into  direct  sight  of  a  thought  in  another  per- 
sonal consciousness  than  its  own.  Absolute  insulation, 
irreducible  pluralism,  is  the  law.  It  seems  as  if  the  ele- 
mentary psychic  fact  were  not  thought  or  this  thought  or 
that  thought,  but  my  thought,  every  thought  being  oivned. 
Neither  contemporaneity,  nor  proximity  in  space,  nor  simi- 
larity of  quality  and  content  are  able  to  fuse  thoughts 
together  which  are  sundered  by  this  barrier  of  belonging 
to  different  personal  minds.  The  breaches  between  such 
thoughts  are  the  most  absolute  breaches  in  nature.  Every 
one  will  recognize  this  to  be  true,  so  long  as  the  existence 
of  something  corresponding  to  the  term  'personal  mind'  is 
all  that  is  insisted  on,  without  any  particular  view  of  its 
nature  being  implied.  On  these  terms  the  personal  self 
rather  than  the  thought  might  be  treated  as  the  immediate 
datum  in  psychology.  The  universal  conscious  fact  is  not 
'feelings  and  thoughts  exist,'  but  'I  think '  and  'I  feel.' 
No  psychology,  at  any  rate,  can  question  the  existence  of 
personal  selves.     Thoughts  connected  as  we  feel  them  to 


154  PSYCHOLOGY. 

be  connected  are  what  we  mean  by  personal  selves.  The 
worst  a  psychology  can  do  is  so  to  interpret  the  nature  of 
these  selves  as  to  rob  them  of  their  worth. 

Consciousness  is  in  constant  change.  I  do  not  mean  by 
this  to  say  that  no  one  state  of  mind  has  any  duration — 
even  if  true,  that  would  be  hard  to  establish.  What  I  wish 
to  lay  stress  on  is  this,  that  no  stair  once  gone  run  recur  and 
be  identical  with  what  it  was  before.  Now  we  are  seeing, 
now  hearing;  now  reasoning,  now  willing;  now  recollect- 
ing, now  expecting;  now  loving,  now  hating;  and  in  a 
hundred  other  ways  we  know  our  minds  to  be  alternately 
engaged.  But  all  these  are  complex  states,  it  may  be  said, 
produced  by  combination  of  simpler  ones; — do  not  the 
simpler  ones  follow  a  different  law  ?  Are  not  the  sensa- 
tions which  we  get  from  the  same  object,  for  example, 
always  the  same?  Does  not  the  same  piano-key,  struck 
with  the  same  force,  make  us  hear  in  the  same  way  ?  Does 
not  the  same  grass  give  us  the  same  feeling  of  green,  the 
same  sky  the  same  feeling  of  blue,  and  do  we  not  get  the 
same  olfactory  sensation  no  matter  how  many  times  we  put 
our  nose  to  the  same  flask  of  cologne  ?  It  seems  a  piece  of 
metaphysical  sophistry  to  suggest  that  we  do  not;  and  yet 
a  close  attention  to  the  matter  shows  that  there  is  no  proof 
that  an  incoming  current  ever  gives  us  just  the  same  bodily 
sen  sat  io  71  twice. 

What  is  got  twice  is  the  same  object.  We  hear  the  same 
note  over  and  over  again;  we  see  the  same  qualify  of  green, 
or  smell  the  same  objective  perfume,  or  experience  the 
same  species  of  pain.  The  realities,  concrete  and  abstract, 
physical  and  ideal,  whose  permanent  existence  we  believe 
in,  seem  to  be  constantly  coming  up  again  before  our 
thought,  and  lead  us,  in  our  carelessness,  to  suppose  that 
our  '  ideas'  of  them  are  the  same  ideas.  When  we  come, 
some  time  later,  to  the  chapter  on  Perception,  we  shall  see 
how  inveterate  is  our  habit  of  simply  using  our  sensible 
impressions  as  stepping-stones  to  pass  over  to  t lie  recogni- 
tion of  the  realities  whose  presence  they  reveal.    The  grass 


THE  STREAM  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS.  155 

out  of  the  window  now  looks  to  me  of  the  same  green  in 
the  sun  as  in  the  shade,  and  yet  a  painter  would  have  to 
paint  one  part  of  it  dark  brown,  another  part  bright  yel- 
low, to  give  its  real  sensational  effect.  We  take  no  heed, 
as  a  rule,  of  the  different  way  in  which  the  same  things 
look  and  sound  and  smell  at  different  distances  and  under 
different  circumstances.  The  sameness  of  the  tilings  is 
what  we  are  concerned  to  ascertain;  and  any  sensations 
that  assure  us  of  that  will  probably  be  considered  in  a 
rough  way  to  be  the  same  with  each  other.  This  is  what 
makes  off-hand  testimony  about  the  subjective  identity  of 
different  sensations  well-nigh  worthless  as  a  proof  of  the 
fact.  The  entire  history  of  what  is  called  Sensation  is  a 
commentary  on  our  inability  to  tell  whether  two  sensible 
qualities  received  apart  are  exactly  alike.  What  appeals  to 
our  attention  far  more  than  the  absolute  quality  of  an  im- 
pression is  its  ratio  to  whatever  other  inrpressions  we  may 
have  at  the  same  time.  When  everything  is  dark  a  some- 
what less  dark  sensation  makes  us  see  an  object  white. 
Helmholtz  calculates  that  the  white  marble  painted  in  a 
picture  representing  an  architectural  view  by  moonlight  is, 
when  seen  by  daylight,  from  ten  to  twenty  thousand  times 
brighter  than  the  real  moonlit  marble  would  be. 

Such  a  difference  as  this  could  never  have  been  sensibly 
learned ;  it  had  to  be  inferred  from  a  series  of  indirect  con- 
siderations. These  make  us  believe  that  our  sensibility  is 
altering  all  the  time,  so  that  the  same  object  cannot  easily 
give  us  the  same  sensation  over  again.  We  feel  things 
differently  accordingly  as  we  are  sleepy  or  awake,  hungry 
or  full,  fresh  or  tired ;  differently  at  night  and  in  the  morn- 
ing, differently  in  summer  and  in  winter;  and  above  all, 
differently  in  childhood,  manhood,  and  old  age  And  yet 
we  never  doubt  that  our  feelings  reveal  the  same  world, 
with  the  same  sensible  qualities  and  the  same  sensible 
tilings  occupying  it.  The  difference  of  the  sensibility  is 
shown  best  by  the  difference  of  our  emotion  about  the 
things  from  one  age  to  another,  or  when   we  are  in  dif- 


lfid  PSYCHOLOGY. 

ferent  organic  moods.  What  was  bright  and  exciting 
becomes  weary,  ilat,  and  unprofitable.  The  bird's  song  ia 
tedious,  the  breeze  is  mournful,  the  sky  is  sad. 

To  these  indirect  presumptions  that  our  sensations,  fol- 
lowing the  mutations  of  our  capacity  for  feeling,  are  always 
undergoing  an  essential  change,  must  be  added  another 
presumption,  based  on  what  must  happen  in  the  brain. 
Every  sensation  corresponds  to  some  cerebral  action.  For 
an  identical  sensation  to  recur  it  would  have  to  occur  the 
second  time  in  ah  unmodified  brain.  But  as  this,  strictly 
speaking,  is  a  physiological  impossibility,  so  is  an  unmodi- 
fied feeling  an  impossibility;  for  to  every  brain-modifica- 
tion, however  small,  we  suppose  that  there  must  corre- 
spond a  change  of  equal  amount  in  the  consciousness 
which  the  brain  subserves. 

But  if  the  assumption  of  'simple  sensations' recurring 
in  immutable  shape  is  so  easily  shown  to  be  baseless,  how 
much  more  baseless  is  the  assumption  of  immutability  in 
the  larger  masses  of  our  thought! 

For  there  it  is  obvious  and  palpable  that  our  state  of 
mind  is  never  precisely  the  same.  Every  thought  we  have 
of  a  given  fact  is,  strictly  speaking,  unique,  and  only  bears 
a  resemblance  of  kind  with  our  other  thoughts  of  the  same 
fact.  When  the  identical  fact  recurs,  we  must  think  of 
it  in  a  fresh  manner,  see  it  under  a  somewhat  different 
angle,  apprehend  it  in  different  relations  from  those  in 
which  it  last  appeared.  And  the  thought  by  which  we 
cognize  it  is  the  thought  of  it-in-those-relations,  a  thought 
suffused  with  the  consciousness  of  al]  that  dim  context. 
Often  avo  are  ourselves  struck  at  the  strange  differences  in 
our  successive  views  of  the  same  thing.  We  wonder  how 
we  ever  could  have  opined  as  we  did  last  month  about  a 
certain  matter.  We  have  outgrown  the  possibility  of  that 
state  of  mind,  we  know  not  how.  From  one  year  to  an- 
other  we  see  things  in  new  lights.  What  was  unreal  has 
grown  real,  and  what  was  exciting  is  insipid.  The  friends 
we  used  to  care  the  world  for  are  shrunken  to  shadows; 


THE  STREAM  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS.  107 

the  women  once  so  divine,  the  stars,  the  woods,  and  the 
waters,  how  now  so  dull  and  common! — the  young  girls 
that  brought  an  aura  of  infinity,  at  present  hardly  distin- 
guishable existences;  the  pictures  so  empty;  and  as  for 
the  books,  what  was  there  to  find  so  mysteriously  signifi 
cant  in  Goethe,  or  in  John  Mill  so  full  of  weight  ?  Instead 
of  all  this,  more  zestful  than  ever  is  the  work,  the  work ; 
and  fuller  and  deeper  the  import  of  common  duties  and  of 
common  goods. 

I  am  sure  that  this  concrete  and  total  manner  of  regard- 
ing the  mind's  changes  is  the  only  true  manner,  difficult 
as  it  may  be  to  carry  it  out  in  detail.  If  anything  seems 
obscure  about  it,  it  will  grow  clearer  as  we  advance. 
Meanwhile,  if  it  be  true,  it  is  certainly  also  true  that  no 
two  '  ideas '  are  ever  exactly  the  same,  which  is  the  propo- 
sition we  started  to  prove.  The  proposition  is  more 
important  theoretically  than  it  at  first  sight  seems.  For 
it  makes  it  already  impossible  for  us  to  follow  obediently 
in  the  footprints  of  either  the  Lockian  or  the  Herbartian 
school,  schools  which  have  had  almost  unlimited  influence 
in  Germany  and  among  ourselves.  No  doubt  it  is  often 
convenient  to  formulate  the  mental  facts  in  an  atomistic 
sort  of  way,  and  to  treat  the  higher  states  of  consciousness 
as  if  they  were  all  built  out  of  unchanging  simple  ideas 
which  'pass  and  turn  again.'  It  is  convenient  often  to 
treat  curves  as  if  they  were  composed  of  small  straight 
lines,  and  electricity  and  nerve-force  as  if  they  were  fluids. 
But  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other  we  must  never  forget 
that  we  are  talking  symbolically,  and  that  there  is  noth- 
ing in  nature  to  answer  to  our  words.  A  permanently 
existing  'Idea'  which  makes  its  appearance  before  the 
footlights  of  consciousness  at  periodical  intervals  is  as 
mythological  an  entity  as  the  Jack  of  Spades. 

Within  each  personal  consciousness,  thought  is  sensibly 
continuous.  I  can  only  define  'continuous'  as  that  which 
is  without  breach,  crack,  or  division.  The  only  breaches 
that  can  well  be  conceived  to  occur  within  the  limits  of  a 


15S  PSYCHOLOGY. 

single  mind  would  either  be  interruptions,  time-gaps  dur- 
ing which  the  consciousness  went  out;  or  they  would  be 
breaks  in  the  contenl  of  the  thought,  so  abrupt  that  what 
followed  had  no  connection  whatever  with  what  went 
before.  The  proposition  that  consciousness  feels  continu- 
ous, means  two  things: 

a.  That  even  where  there  is  a  time-gap  the  conscious- 
ness after  it  feels  as  if  it  belonged  together  with  the  con- 
sciousness before  it,  as  another  part  of  the  same  self; 

b.  That  the  changes  from  one  moment  to  another  in  the 
quality  of  the  consciousness  are  never  absolutely  abrupt. 

The  case  of  i  he  t  ime-gaps,  as  the  simplest,  shall  be  taken 
first. 

a.  When  Paul  and  Peter  wake  up  in  the  same  bed,  and 
recognize  that  they  have  been  asleep,  each  one  of  them 
mentally  reaches  back  and  makes  connection  with  but  one 
of  the  two  streams  of  thought  which  were  broken  by  the 
sleeping  hours.  As  the  current  of  an  electrode  buried  in 
the  ground  unerringly  finds  its  way  to  its  own  similarly 
buried  mate,  across  no  mat  t er  how  much  intervening  earth ; 
so  Peter's  present  instantly  finds  out  Peter's  past,  and 
never  by  mistake  knits  itself  on  to  that  of  Paul.  Paul's 
thought  in  turn  is  as  little  liable  to  go  astray.  The  past 
thought  of  Peter  is  appropriated  by  the  present  Peter 
alone.  He  may  have  a  knowledge,  and  a  correct  one  too, 
of  what  Paul's  last  drowsy  states  of  mind  were  as  he  sank 
into  sleep,  but  it  is  an  entirely  different  sort  of  knowledge 
from  that  which  he  has  of  his  own  last  states.  He  remem- 
bers  his  own  states,  whilst  he  only  conceives  Paul's.  Re- 
membrance is  like  direct  feeling;  its  object  is  suffused 
with  a  warmth  and  intimacy  to  which  no  object  of  mere 
conception  ever  attains.  This  quality  of  warmth  and 
intimacy  and  immediacy  is  what  Peter's  present  thought 
also  possesses  for  itself.  So  sure  as  this  present  is  me,  is 
mine,  it  says,  so  sure  is  anything  else  that  comes  with  the 
same  warmth  and  intimacy  and  immediacy,  me  and  mine. 
What  the  qualities  called  warmth  and  intimacy  may  in 


THE  STREAM    OF  CONSCIOUSNESS.  159 

themselves  be  will  have  to  be  matter  for  future  consider- 
ation. But  whatever  past  states  appear  with  those  quali- 
ties must  be  admitted  to  receive  the  greeting  of  the  pres- 
ent mental  state,  to  be  owned  by  it,  and  accepted  as 
belonging  together  with  it  in  a  common  self.  This  com- 
munity of  self  is  what  the  time-gap  cannot  break  in  twain, 
and  is  why  a  present  thought,  although  not  ignorant  of 
the  time-gap,  can  still  regard  itself  as  continuous  with  cer- 
tain chosen  portions  of  the  past. 

Consciousness,  then,  does  not  appear  to  itself  chopped 
up  in  bits.  Such  words  as  '  chain  '  or  '  train '  do  not  de 
scribe  it  fitly  as  it  presents  itself  in  the  first  instance.  It 
is  nothing  jointed;  it  flows.  A  'river'  or  a  'stream'  are 
the  metaphors  by  which  it  is  most  naturally  described.  In 
talking  of  it  hereafter,  let  us  call  it  the  stream  of  thought, 
of  consciousness,  or  of  subjective  life. 

b.  But  now  there  appears,  even  within  the  limits  of  the 
same  self,  and  between  thoughts  all  of  which  alike  have 
this  same  sense  of  belonging  together,  a  kind  of  jointing 
and  separateness  among  the  parts,  of  which  this  statement 
seems  to  take  no  account.  I  refer  to  the  breaks  that  are 
produced  by  sudden  contrasts  in  the  quality  of  the  suc- 
cessive segments  of  the  stream  of  thought.  If  the  words 
'chain' and  'train'  had  no  natural  fitness  in  them,  how 
came  such  words  to  be  used  at  all  ?  Does  not  a  loud 
explosion  rend  the  consciousness  upon  which  it  abruptly 
breaks,  in  twain  ?  No;  for  even  into  our  awareness  of  the 
thunder  the  awareness  of  the  previous  silence  creeps  and 
continues;  for  what  we  hear  when  the  thunder  crashes  is 
not  thunder  pure,  but  thunder-breaking-upon-silence-and- 
contrasting-with-it.  Our  feeling  of  the  same  objective 
thunder,  coming  in  this  way,  is  quite  different  from  what 
it  would  be  were  the  thunder  a  continuation  of  previous 
thunder.  The  thunder  itself  we  believe  to  abolish  and 
exclude  the  silence;  but  the  feeling  of  the  thunder  is  also 
a  feeling  of  the  silence  as  just  gone;  and  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  find  in  the  actual  concrete  consciousness  of  man  a 


160  PSYCHOLOGY 

feeling  so  limited  to  the  present  as  not  to  have  an  inkling 
of  anything  that  went  before. 

'  Substantive  '  and  '  Transitive '  States  of  Mind. — When 
we  take  a  general  view  of  the  wonderful  stream  of  our 
consciousness,  what  strikes  us  first  is  the  different  pace  of 
its  parts.     Like  a  bird's  life,  it  seems  to  be  an  alternation  of 

Mights  and  perchings.     The  rhythm  of  language  expre 

this,  where  every  thought  is  expressed  in  a  sentence,  and 
every  sentence  closed  by  a  period.  The  resting-places  are 
usually  occupied  by  sensorial  imaginations  of  some  sort, 
whose  peculiarity  is  that  they  can  be  held  before  the  mind 
for  an  indefinite  time,  and  contemplated  without  chang- 
ing; the  places  of  flight  are  filled  with  thoughts  of  relations, 
static  or  dynamic,  that  for  the  most  part  obtain  between 
the  matters  contemplated  in  the  periods  of  comparative 
rest. 

Let  us  call  the  resting-places  the  'substantive  parts'  and 
the  places  of  flight  the  '  transit  ire  parts,'  of  the  stream  of 
thought.  It  then  appears  that  our  thinking  tends  at  all 
times  towards  some  other  substantive  part  than  the  one 
from  which  it  has  just  been  dislodged.  And  we  may  say 
that  the  main  use  of  the  transitive  parts  is  to  lead  us  from 
one  substantive  conclusion  to  another. 

Now  it  is  very  difficult,  introspectively,  to  see  the  tran- 
sitive parts  for  what  they  really  are.  If  they  are  but 
flights  to  a  conclusion,  stopping  them  to  look  at  them 
before  the  conclusion  is  reached  is  really  annihilating 
them.  "Whilst  if  we  wait  till  the  conclusion  be  reached,  it 
so  exceeds  them  in  vigor  and  stability  that  it  quite  eclipses 
and  swallows  them  up  in  its  glare.  Let  anyone  try  to  cut 
a  thought  across  in  the  middle  and  get  a  look  at  its  sec- 
tion, and  he  will  see  how  difficult  the  introspective  obsei- 
vation  of  the  transitive  tracts  is.  The  rush  of  the  thought 
is  so  headlong  that  it  almost  always  brings  us  up  at  the 
conclusion  before  we  can  arrest  it.  Or  if  our  purpose  is 
nimble  enough  and  we  do  arrest  it,  it  ceases  forthwith  to 
be  itself.     As  a  snowllake  crystal  caught  in  the  warm  hand 


1 HE  STREAM   OF  COJSfSClOUSA'MSS  16J 

is  no  longer  a  crystal  but  a  drop,  so,  instead  of  catching 
the  feeling  of  relation  moving  to  its  term,  we  find  we  have 
caught  some  substantive  thing,  usually  the  last  word  we 
were  pronouncing,  statically  taken,  and  with  its  function, 
tendency,  and  particular  meaning  in  the  sentence  quite 
evaporated.  The  attempt  at  introspective  analysis  in 
these  cases  is  in  fact  like  seizing  a  spinning  top  to  catch 
its  motion,  or  trying  to  turn  up  the  gas  quickly  enough  to 
see  how  the  darkness  looks.  And  the  challenge  to  pro- 
duce these  transitive  states  of  consciousness,  which  is  sure 
to  be  thrown  by  doubting  psychologists  at  anyone  who 
contends  for  their  existence,  is  as  unfair  as  Zeno's  treat- 
ment of  the  advocates  of  motion,  when,  asking  them  to 
point  out  in  what  place  an  arrow  is  when  it  moves,  he 
argues  the  falsity  of  their  thesis  from  their  inability  to 
make  to  so  preposterous  a  question  an  immediate  reply. 

The  results  of  this  introspective  difficulty  are  baleful. 
If  to  hold  fast  and  observe  the  transitive  parts  of  thought's 
stream  be  so  hard,  then  the  great  blunder  to  which  all 
schools  are  liable  must  be  the  failure  to  register  them,  and 
the  undue  emphasizing  of  the  more  substantive  parts  of  the 
stream.  Now  the  blunder  has  historically  worked  in  two 
ways.  One  set  of  thinkers  have  been  led  by  it  to  Sensa- 
tionalism. Unable  to  lay  their  hands  on  any  substantive 
feelings  corresponding  to  the  innumerable  relations  and 
forms  of  connection  between  the  sensible  things  of  the 
world,  finding  no  named  mental  states  mirroring  such  re- 
lations,  they  have  for  the  most  part  denied  that  any  such 
states  exist;  and  many  of  them,  like  Hume,  have  gone  on 
to  deny  the  reality  of  most  relations  out  of  the  mind  as 
well  as  in  it.  Simple  substantive  'ideas,'  sensations  and 
their  copies,  juxtaposed  like  dominoes  in  a  game,  but  really 
separate,  everything  else  verbal  illusion, — such  is  the  up- 
shot of  this  view.  The  Intellectualists,  on  the  other  hand, 
unable  to  give  up  the  reality  of  relations  extra  mentem,  but 
equally  unable  to  point  to  any  distinct  substantive  feelings 
in  which  they  were  known,  have  made  the  same  admission 


-v^ 


162  PS 1 OHO LOO Y. 

that  such  feelings  do  not  exist.  But  they  nave  drawn  an 
opposite  conclusion.  The  relations  must  be  known,  they 
say,  in  something  that  is  no  feeling,  no  mental  'state,' 
continuous  and  consubstantial  with  the  subjective  tissue 
out  of  whieh  sensations  and  other  substantive  conditions 
of  consciousness  are  made.  They  must  be  known  by 
something  that  lies  on  an  entirely  different  plane,  by  an 
actus  punts  of  Thought,  Intellect,  or  Reason,  all  written 
with  capitals  and  considered  to  mean  something  unutter- 
ably superior  to  any  passing  perishing  fact  of  sensibility 
whatever. 

But  from  our  point  of  view  both  Intellectualists  and 
Sensationalists  are  wrong.  If  there  be  such  things  as 
feelings  at  all,  then  so  surely  as  relations  behveen  object.1? 
exist  in  rerum  natura,  so  surely,  and  more  surely,  do  feel- 
ings exist  to  which  these  relations  are  known.  There  is 
not  a  conjunction  or  a  preposition,  and  hardly  an  adver- 
bial phrase,  syntactic  form,  or  inflection  of  voice,  in 
human  speech,  that  does  not  express  some  shading  or 
other  of  relation  which  we  at  some  moment  actually  feel 
to  exist  between  the  larger  objects  of  our  thought.  If 
we  speak  objectively,  it  is  the  real  relations  that  appear 
revealed;  if  we  speak  subjectively,  it  is  the  stream  of 
consciousness  that  matches  each  of  them  by  an  inward 
coloring  of  its  own.  In  either  case  the  relations  are  num- 
berless, and  no  existing  language  is  capable  of  doing  jus- 
tice to  all  their  shades. 

We  ought  to  say  a  feeling  of  and,  a  feeling  of  if,  a  feel- 
ing of  but,  and  a  feeling  of  by,  quite  as  readily  as  we  say 
a  feeling  of  blue  or  a  feeling  of  cold.  Yet  we  do  not:  so 
inveterate  has  our  habit  become  of  recognizing  the  exist- 
ence of  the  substantive  parts  alone,  that  language  almost 
refuses  to  lend  itself  to  any  other  use.  Consider  once 
again  the  analogy  of  the  brain.  We  believe  the  brain  to 
be  an  organ  whose  internal  equilibrium  is  always  in  a  state 
of  change — the  change  affecting  every  part.  The  pulses 
of  change  are  doubtless  more  violent  in  one  place  than  in 


THE  STREAM  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS.  163 

another,  their  rhythm  more  rapid  at  this  time  than  at 
that.  As  in  a  kaleidoscope  revolving  at  a  uniform  rate, 
although  the  figures  are  always  rearranging  themselves, 
there  are  instants  during  which  the  transformation  seems 
minute  and  interstitial  and  almost  absent,  followed  by 
others  when  it  shoots  with  magical  rapidity,  relatively 
stable  forms  thus  alternating  with  forms  we  should  not 
distinguish  if  seen  again;  so  in  the  brain  the  perpetual 
rearrangement  must  result  in  some  forms  of  tension  lin- 
gering relatively  long,  whilst  others  simply  come  and  pass. 
But  if  consciousness  corresponds  to  the  fact  of  rearrange- 
ment itself,  why,  if  the  rearrangement  stop  not,  should  the 
consciousness  ever  cease  ?  And  if  a  lingering  rearrange- 
ment brings  with  it  one  kind  of  consciousness,  why  should 
not  a  swift  rearrangement  bring  another  kind  of  con- 
sciousness as  peculiar  as  the  rearrangement  itself  ? 

The  object  before  the  mind  always  has  a  '  Fringe.' 
There  are  other  unnamed  modifications  of  consciousness 
just  as  important  as  the  transitive  states,  and  just  as  cog- 
nitive as  they.     Examples  will  show  what  I  mean. 

Suppose  three  successive  persons  say  to  us:  'Wait  !' 
'Hark!'  'Look!'  Our  consciousness  is  thrown  into 
three  quite  different  attitudes  of  expectanc}r,  although  no 
definite  object  is  before  it  in  any  one  of  the  three  cases, 
Probably  no  one  will  deny  here  the  existence  of  a  real  con- 
scious affection,  a  sense  of  the  direction  from  which  an 
impression  is  about  to  come,  although  no  positive  impres- 
sion is  yet  there.  Meanwhile  we  have  no  names  for  the 
psychoses  in  question  but  the  names  hark,  look,  and  wait. 

Suppose  we  try  to  recall  a  forgotten  name.  The  state 
of  our  consciousness  is  peculiar.  There  is  a  gap  therein; 
but  no  mere  gap.  It  is  a  gap  that  is  intensely  active.  A 
sort  of  wraith  of  the  name  is  in  it,  beckoning  us  in  a  given 
direction,  making  us  at  moments  tingle  with  the  sense  of 
our  closeness,  and  then  letting  us  sink  back  without  the 
longed-for  term.  If  wrong  names  are  proposed  to  us,  this 
singularly  definite  gap  acts    mmediately  so  as  to  mgate 


164  PBTCHOLOOY. 

them.  They  do  not  lit  into  its  mould.  And  the  gap  of 
one  word  duos  not  feel  like  the  gap  of  another,  all  empty 
of  content  as  both  might  seem  necessarily  to  be  when  de- 
scribed as  gaps.  When  I  vainly  try  to  recall  the  name  of 
Spalding,  my  consciousness  is  far  removed  from  what  it  is 
when  I  vainly  try  to  recall  the  name  of  Bowles.  There 
are  innumerable  consciousnesses  of  want,  no  one  of  which 
taken  in  itself  has  a  name,  but  all  different  from  cadi 
other.  Such  a  feeling  of  want  is  toto  ccelo  other  than  a 
want  of  feeling:  it  is  an  intense  feeling.  The  rhythm  of 
a  lost  word  may  be  there  without  a  sound  to  clothe  it;  or 
the  evanescent  sense  of  something  which  is  the  initial 
vowel  or  consonant  may  mock  us  fitfully,  without  grow- 
ing more  distinct.  Every  one  must  know  the  tantalizing 
effect  of  the  blank  rhythm  of  some  forgotten  verse,  rest- 
lessly dancing  in  one's  mind,  striving  to  be  filled  out  with 
words. 

What  is  that  first  instantaneous  glimpse  of  some  one's 
meaning  which  we  have,  when  in  vulgar  phrase  we  say  we 
'twig' it?  Surely  an  altogether  specific  affection  of  our 
mind.  And  has  the  reader  never  asked  himself  what  kind 
of  a  mental  fact  is  his  intention  of  saying  a  thing  before 
he  has  said  it  ?  It  is  an  entirely  definite  intention,  dis- 
tinct from  all  other  intentions,  an  absolutely  distinct  state 
of  consciousness,  therefore;  and  yet  how  much  of  it  con- 
sists of  definite  sensorial  images,  either  of  words  or  of 
things  ?  Hardly  anything  !  Linger,  and  the  words  and 
things  come  into  the  mind;  the  anticipatory  intention,  the 
divination  is  there  no  more.  But  as  the  words  that  re- 
place it  arrive,  it  welcomes  them  successively  and  calls 
them  right  if  they  agree  with  it,  it  rejects  them  and  calls 
them  wrong  if  they  do  not.  The  intention  to-say-so- 
and-so  is  the  only  name  it  can  receive.  One  may  admit 
that  a  good  third  of  our  psychic  life  consists  in  these  rapid 
premonitory  perspective  views  of  schemes  of  thought  not 
yet  articulate.  How  comes  it  about  that  a  man  reading 
something  aloud  for  the  first  time  is  able  immediately  to 


THE  STREAM  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS.  165 

emphasize  all  his  words  aright,  unless  from  the  very  first 
he  have  a  sense  of  at  least  the  form  of  the  sentence  yet 
to  come,  which  sense  is  fused  with  his  consciousness  of 
the  present  word,  and  modifies  its  emphasis  in  his  mind 
so  as  to  make  him  give  it  the  proper  accent  as  he  utters 
it  ?  Emphasis  of  this  kind  almost  altogether  depends  on 
grammatical  construction.  If  we  read  *  no  more/  we  ex- 
pect presently  a  '  than';  if  we  read  '  however/  it  is  a  'yet/ 
a  '  still/  or  a  *  nevertheless/  that  we  expect.  And  this 
foreboding  of  the  coming  verbal  and  grammatical  scheme 
is  so  practically  accurate  that  a  reader  incapable  of  under- 
standing four  ideas  of  the  book  he  is  reading  aloud  can 
nevertheless  read  it  with  the  most  delicately  modulated 
expression  of  intelligence. 

It  is,  the  reader  will  see,  the  reinstatement  of  the  vague 
and  inarticulate  to  its  proper  place  in  our  mental  life  which 
I  am  so  anxious  to  press  on  the  attention.  Mr.  Galton 
and  Prof.  Huxley  have,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  chapter  on 
Imagination,  made  one  step  in  advance  in  exploding  the 
ridiculous  theory  of  Hume  and  Berkeley  that  we  can  have 
no  images  but  of  perfectly  definite  things.  Another  is 
made  if  we  overthrow  the  equally  ridiculous  notion  that, 
whilst  simple  objective  qualities  are  revealed  to  our  knowl- 
edge in  '  states  of  consciousness/  relations  are  not.  But 
these  reforms  are  not  half  sweeping  and  radical  enough. 
What  must  be  admitted  is  that  the  definite  images  of  tra- 
ditional psychology  form  but  the  very  smallest  part  of  our 
minds  as  they  actually  live.  The  traditional  psychology 
talks  like  one  who  should  say  a  river  consists  of  nothing 
but  pailsful,  spoonsful,  quartpotsful,  barrelsful,  and  other 
moulded  forms  of  water.  Even  were  the  pails  and  the  pots 
all  actually  standing  in  the  stream,  still  between  them  the 
free  water  would  continue  to  flow.  It  is  just  this  free 
water  of  consciousness  that  psychologists  resolutely  over- 
look. Every  definite  image  in  the  mind  is  steeped  and 
dyed  in  the  free  water  that  flows  round  it.  With  it  goes 
the  sense  of  its  relations,  near  and  remote,  the  dying  echo 


160 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


of  whence  it  came  to  us,  the  dawning  sense  of  whither  it  is 
to  lead.  The  significance,  the  value,  of  the  image  is  all  in 
this  halo  or  penumbra  that  surrounds  and  escorts  it, — or 
rather  that  is  fused  into  one  with  it  and  has  become  bone 
of  its  bone  and  flesh  of  its  flesh;  leaving  it,  it  is  true,  an 
image  of  the  same  thing  it  was  before,  but  making  it  an 
image  of  that  thing  newly  taken  and  freshly  understood. 

Let  us  call  the  consciousness  of  this  halo  of  relations 
around  the  image  by  the  name  of  <i)sychic  overtone'  or 
(fringe.' 

Cerebral  Conditions  of  the  4  Fringe.' — Nothing  is  easier 
than  to  symbolize  these  facts  in  terms  of  brain-action. 
Just  as  the  echo  of  the  whence,  the  sense  of  the  starting 
point  of  our  thought,  is  probably  due  to  the  dying  excite- 
ment of  processes  but  a  moment  since  vividly  aroused;  so 
the  sense  of  the  whither,  the  foretaste  of  the  terminus, 
must  be  due  to  the  waxing  excitement  of  tracts  or  pro- 
cesses whose  psychical  correlative  will  a  moment  hence  be 
the  vividly  present  feature  of  our  thought.  Represented 
by  a  curve,  the  neurosis  underlying  consciousness  must  at 
any  moment  be  like  this: 

Let  the  horizontal  in  Fig.  52  be  the  line  of  time,  and 


Fig.  52. 

let  the  three  curves  beginning  at  a,  b,  and  c  respectively 
stand  for  the  neural  processes  correlated  with  the  thoughts 
of  those  three  letters.  Each  process  occupies  a  certain 
time  during  which  its  intensity  waxes,  culminates,  and 
wanes.     The  process  for  a  has  not  yet  died  out,  the  pro- 


THE  STREAM  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS.  167 

cess  for  c  has  already  begun,  when  that  for  b  is  culminat- 
ing. At  the  time-instant  represented  by  the  vertical  line 
all  three  processes  are  present,  in  the  intensities  shown  by 
the  curve.  Those  before  c's  apex  were  more  intense  a 
moment  ago;  those  after  it  will  be  more  intense  a  moment 
hence.  If  I  recite  a,  b,  c,  then,  at  the  moment  of  uttering 
b,  neither  a  nor  c  is  out  of  my  consciousness  altogether, 
but  both,  after  their  respective  fashions,  '  mix  their  dim 
lights'  with  the  stronger  b,  because  their  processes  are 
both  awake  in  some  degree. 

It  is  just  like  'overtones'  in  music:  they  are  not  sepa- 
rately heard  by  the  ear;  they  blend  with  the  fundamental 
note,  and  suffuse  it,  and  alter  it;  and  even  so  do  the  waxing 
and  waning  brain-processes  at  every  moment  blend  with 
and  suffuse  and  alter  the  psychic  effect  of  the  processes 
which  are  at  their  culminating  point. 

The  '  Topic '  of  the  Thought. — If  we  then  consider  the 
cognitive  function  of  different  states  of  mind,  we  may  feel 
assured  that  the  difference  between  those  that  are  mere 
'  acquaintance '  and  those  that  are  'knowledges-a^o?^' 
is  reducible  almost  entirely  to  the  absence  or  presence 
of  psychic  fringes  or  overtones.  Knowledge  about  a 
thing  is  knowledge  of  its  relations.  Acquaintance  with 
it  is  limitation  to  the  bare  impression  which  it  makes. 
Of  most  of  its  relations  we  are  only  aware  in  the  penu ru- 
bral nascent  way  of  a  '  fringe '  of  unarticulated  affinities 
about  it.  And,  before  passing  to  the  next  topic  in  order,  I 
must  say  a  little  of  this  sense  of  affinity,  as  itself  one  of  the 
most  interesting  features  of  the  subjective  stream. 

Thought  may  be  equally  rational  in  any  sort  of  terms. 
In  all  our  voluntary  thinking  there  is  some  topic  or 
subject  about  which  all  the  members  of  the  thought  re- 
volve. Relation  to  this  topic  or  interest  is  constantly  felt 
in  the  fringe,  and  particularly  the  relation  of  harmony  and 
discord,  of  furtherance  or  hindrance  of  the  topic.  Any 
thought  the  quality  of  whose  fringe  lets  us  feel  ourselves 
'  all  right,'  may  be  considered  a  thought  that  furthers  the 


168  '  PSYCHOLOGY. 

topic.  Provided  we  only  feel  its  object  to  have  a  place  in 
ilic  scheme  of  relations  in  which  the  topic  also  lies,  thai  is 
sufficient  to  make  of  it  a  relevant  and  appropriate  portion 

of  our  train  of  ideas. 

Now  we  may  think  about  our  topic  mainly  in  words,  or 
we  may  think  about  it  mainly  in  visual  or  other  images,  but 
this  need  make  no  difference  as  regards  the  furtherance  of 
our  knowledge  of  the  topic.  If  we  only  feel  in  the  terms, 
whatever  they  be,  a  fringe  of  affinity  with  each  other  and 
with  the  topic,  and  if  we  are  conscious  of  approaching  a 
conclusion,  we  feel  that  our  thought  is  rational  and  right. 
The  words  in  every  language  have  contracted  by  long  asso> 
ciation  fringes  of  mutual  repugnance  or  affinity  with  each 
other  and  with  the  conclusion,  which  run  exactly  parallel 
with  like  fringes  in  the  visual,  tactile,  and  other  ideas. 
The  most  important  element  of  these  fringes  is,  I  repeat, 
the  mere  feeling  of  harmony  or  discord,  of  a  right  or 
wrong  direction  in  the  thought. 

If  we  know  English  and  French  and  begin  a  sentence 
in  French,  all  the  later  words  that  come  are  French ;  we 
hardly  ever  drop  into  English.  And  this  affinity  of  the 
French  words  for  each  other  is  not  something  merely 
operating  mechanically  as  a  brain-law,  it  is  something 
we  feel  at  the  time.  Our  understanding  of  a  French  sen- 
tence heard  never  falls  to  so  low  an  eb„b  that  we  are  not 
aware  that  the  words  linguistically  belong  together.  Our 
attention  can  hardly  so  wander  that  if  an  English  word 
be  suddenly  introduced  we  shall  not  start  at  the  change. 
Such  a  vague  sense  as  this  of  the  words  belonging  together 
is  the  very  minimum  of  fringe  that  can  accompany  them, 
if  'thought'  at  all.  Usually  the  vague  perception  thai  all 
tiie  words  we  hear  belong  to  the  same  language  and  to  the 
same  special  vocabulary  in  that  language,  and  that  the 
grammatical  sequence  is  familiar,  is  practically  equivalent 
to  an  admission  that  what  we  hear  is  sense.  But  if  an  un- 
usual foreign  word  be  introduced,  if  the  grammar  trip,  or 
if  a  term  from  an  incongruous  vocabulary  suddenly  appear. 


THE  STREAM  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS. 


169 


sucn  as  ' rat-trap '  or  'plumber's  bill'  in  a  philosophical 
discourse,  the  sentence  detonates  as  it  were,  we  receive  a 
shock  from  the  incongruity,  and  the  drowsy  assent  is  gone. 
The  feeling  of  rationality  in  these  cases  seems  rather  a 
negative  than  a  positive  thing,  being  the  mere  absence  of 
shock,  or  sense  of  discord,  between  the  terms  of  thought. 

Conversely,  if  words  do  belong  to  the  same  vocabulary, 
aud  if  the  grammatical  structure  is  correct,  sentences  with 
absolutely  no  meaning  may  be  uttered  in  good  faith  and 
pass  unchallenged.  Discourses  at  prayer-meetings,  re- 
shuffling the  same  collection  of  cant  phrases,  and  the 
whole  genus  of  penny-a-line-isms  and  newspaper-reporter's 
flourishes  give  illustrations  of  this.  "  The  birds  filled  the 
tree-tops  with  their  morning  song,  making  the  air  moist, 
cool,  and  pleasant,"  is  a  sentence  I  remember  reading  once 
in  a  report  of  some  athletic  exercises  in  Jerome  Park.  It 
was  probably  written  unconsciously  by  the  hurried  re- 
porter, and  read  uncritically  by  many  readers. 

We  see,  then,  that  it  makes  little  or  no  difference  in  what 
sort  of  mind-stuff,  in  what  quality  of  imagery,  our  thinking 
goes  on.  The  only  images  intrinsically  important  are  the 
halting-places,  the  substantive  conclusions,  provisional  or 
final,  of  the  thought.  Throughout  all  the  rest  of  the 
stream,  the  feelings  of  relation  are  everything,  and  the 
terms  related  almost  naught.  These  feelings  of  relation, 
fhese  psychic  overtones,  halos,  suffusions,  or  fringes  about 
the  terms,  may  be  the  same  in  very  different  systems  of 
imagery.  A  diagram  may 
help  to  accentuate  this  in- 
difference of  the  mental 
means  where  the  end  is  the 
same.  Let  A  be  some  ex- 
perience from  which  a  num- 
ber of  thinkers  start.  Let 
Z  be  the  practical  conclu- 
sion rationally  inferrible  FlG  53- 
from  it.     One  gets  to  this  conclusion  by  one  line,  another 


170  PSYCHOLOGY. 

by  another;  one  follows  a  course  of  English,  another  of 
German,  verbal  imagery.  With  one,  visual  images  pre- 
dominate; with  another,  tactile.  Some  trains  are  tinged 
with  emotions,  others  not ;  some  are  very  abridged,  synthetic 
and  rapid;  others,  hesitating  and  broken  into  many  steps. 
Hut  when  the  penultimate  terms  of  all  the  trains,  however 
differing  inter  se,  finally  shoot  into  the  same  conclusion, 
we  say,  and  rightly  say,  that  all  the  thinkers  have  had  sub- 
stantially the  same  thought.  It  would  probably  astound 
each  of  them  beyond  measure  to  be  let  into  his  neighbor's 
mind  and  to  find  how  different  the  scenery  there  was  from 
that  in  his  own. 

The  last  peculiarity  to  which  attention  is  to  be  drawn  in 
this  first  rough  description  of  thought's  stream  is  that — 

Consciousness  is  always  interested  more  in  one  part  of  its 
object  than  in  another,  and  welcomes  and  rejects,  or  chooses, 
all  the  while  it  thinks. 

The  phenomena  of  selective  attention  and  of  delibera- 
tive will  are  of  course  patent  examples  of  this  choosing 
activity.  But  few  of  us  are  aware  how  incessantly  it  is  at 
work  in  operations  not  ordinarily  called  by  these  names. 
Accentuation  and  Emphasis  are  present  in  every  perception 
we  have.  We  find  it  quite  impossible  to  disperse  our 
attention  impartially  over  a  number  of  impressions.  A 
monotonous  succession  of  sonorous  strokes  is  broken  up 
into  rhythms,  now  of  one  sort,  now  of  another,  by  the  dif- 
ferent accent  which  we  place  on  different  strokes.  The 
simplest  of  these  rhythms  is  the  double  one,  tick-tock,  tick- 
tock,  tick-tock.  Dots  dispersed  on  a  surface  are  perceived 
in  rows  and  groups.  Lines  separate  into  diverse  figures. 
The  ubiquity  of  the  distinctions,  this  and  that,  here  and 
there,  now  and  then,  in  our  minds  is  the  result  of  our  lay- 
ing the  same  selective  emphasis  on  parts  of  place  and  time. 

But  we  do  far  more  than  emphasize  things,  and  unite 
some,  and  keep  others  apart.  We  actually  ignore  most  of 
the  things  before  us.  Let  me  briefly  show  how  this  goes 
on. 


THE  STREAM  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS.  171 

To  begin  at  the  bottom,  what  are  our  very  senses  them- 
selves, as  we  saw  on  pp.  10-12,  but  organs  of  selection  ?  Out 
of  the  infinite  chaos  of  movements,  of  which  physics  teaches 
us  that  the  outer  world  consists,  each  sense-organ  picks 
out  those  which  fall  within  certain  limits  of  velocity.  To 
these  it  responds,  but  ignores  the  rest  as  completely  as  if 
they  did  not  exist.  Out  of  what  is  in  itself  an  undistin- 
guishable,  swarming  continuum,  devoid  of  distinction  or 
emphasis,  our  senses  make  for  us,  by  attending  to  this 
motion  and  ignoring  that,  a  world  full  of  contrasts,  of 
sharp  accents,  of  abrupt  changes,  of  picturesque  light  and 
shade. 

If  the  sensations  we  receive  from  a  given  organ  have 
their  causes  thus  picked  out  for  us  by  the  conformation  of 
the  organ's  termination,  Attention,  on  the  other  hand,  out 
of  all  the  sensations  yielded,  picks  out  certain  ones  as 
worthy  of  its  notice  and  suppresses  all  the  rest.  We  notice 
only  those  sensations  which  are  signs  to  us  of  things  which 
happen  practically  or  .aesthetically  to  interest  us,  to  which 
we  therefore  give  substantive  names,  and  which  we  exalt  to 
this  exclusive  status  of  independence  and  dignity.  But  in 
itself,  apart  from  my  interest,  a  particular  dust-wreath  on 
a  windy  day  is  just  as  much  of  an  individual  thing,  and 
just  as  much  or  as  little  deserves  an  individual  name,  at 
my  own  body  does. 

And  then,  among  the  sensations  we  get  from  each  sepa- 
rate thing,  what  happens  ?  The  mind  selects  again.  It 
chooses  certain  of  the  sensations  to  represent  the  thing 
most  truly,  and  considers  the  rest  as  its  appearances,  modi- 
fied by  the  conditions  of  the  moment.  Thus  my  table-top 
is  named  square,  after  but  one  of  an  infinite  number  of 
retinal  sensations  which  it  yields,  the  rest  of  them  being 
sensations  of  two  acute  and  two  obtuse  angles;  but  I  call 
the  latter  perspective  views,  and  the  four  right  angles  the 
true  form  of  the  table,  and  erect  the  attribute  squareness 
into  the  table's  essence,  for  aesthetic  reasons  of  my  own. 
In  like  manner,  the  real  form  of  the  circle  is  deemed  to  be 


172  PSYCHOLOGY. 

the  sensation  it  gives  when  the  line  of  vision  is  perpendicu- 
lar to  its  centre — all  its  other  sensations  are  signs  of  this 
sensation.  The  real  sound  of  the  cannon  is  the  sensation 
it  makes  when  the  ear  is  close  by.  The  real  color  of  the 
brick  is  the  sensation  it  gives  when  the  eve  looks  squarely 
at  it  from  a  near  point,  out  of  the  sunshine  and  yet  not  in 
the  gloom;  under  other  circumstances  it  gives  us  other 
color-sensations  which  are  but  signs  of  this — we  then  see 
it  looks  pinker  or  bluer  than  it  really  is.  The  reader 
knows  no  object  which  he  does  not  represent  to  himself  by 
preference  as  in  some  typical  attitude,  of  some  normal  size, 
at  some  characteristic  distance,  of  some  standard  tint,  etc., 
etc.  But  all  these  essential  characteristics,  Avhich  together 
form  for  us  the  genuine  objectivity  of  the  thing  and  are 
contrasted  with  what  we  call  the  subjective  sensations  it 
may  yield  us  at  a  given  moment,  are  mere  sensations  like 
the  latter.  The  mind  chooses  to  suit  itself,  and  decides 
what  particular  sensation  shall  be  held  more  real  and  valid 
than  all  the  rest. 

Next,  in  a  world  of  objects  thus  individualized  by  our 
mind's  selective  industry,  what  is  called  our  'experience ' 
is  almost  entirely  determined  by  our  habits  of  attention.  A 
thing  may  be  present  to  a  man  a  hundred  times,  but  if  he 
persistently  fails  to  notice  it,  it  cannot  be  said  to  enter  into 
his  experience.  We  are  all  seeing  flies,  moths,  and  beetles  by 
the  thousand,  but  to  whom,  save  an  entomologist,  do  they  saj 
anything  distinct?  On  the  other  hand,  a  thing  met  only 
once  in  a  lifetime  may  leave  an  indelible  experience  in  the 
memory.  Let  four  men  make  a  tour  in  Europe.  One  will 
bring  home  only  picturesque  impressions — costumes  and 
colors,  parks  and  views  and  works  of  architecture,  pictures 
and  statues.  To  another  all  this  will  be  non-existent;  and 
distances  and  jmces,  populations  and  drainage-arrange- 
ments, door-  and  window-fastenings,  and  other  useful 
statistics  will  take  their  place.  A  third  will  give  a  rich 
account  of  the  theatres,  restaurants,  and  public  halls,  and 
naught  beside;  whilst  the  fourth  will  perhaps  have  been  so 


THE  STREAM  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS.  17^ 

wrapped  in  his  own  subjective  broodings  as  to  be  able  to 
tell  little  more  than  a  few  names  of  places  through  which 
he  passed.  Each  has  selected,  out  of  the  same  mass  of 
presented  objects,  those  which  suited  his  private  interest 
and  has  made  his  experience  thereby. 

If  now,  leaving  the  empirical  combination  of  objects,  we 
-j  ask  how  the  mind  proceeds  rationally  to  connect  them,  we 
find  selection  again  to  be  omnipotent.  In  a  future  chapter 
we  shall  see  that  all  Reasoning  depends  on  the  ability  of 
the  mind  to  break  up  the  totality  of  the  phenomenon 
reasoned  about,  into  parts,  and  to  pick  out  from  among 
these  the  particular  one  which,  in  the  given  emergency, 
may  lead  to  the  proper  conclusion.  The  man  of  genius  is 
he  who  will  always  stick  in  his  bill  at  the  right  point,  and 
bring  it  out  with  the  right  element — 'reason'  if  the  emer- 
gency be  theoretical,  '  means '  if  it  be  practical — transfixed 
upon  it. 

If  now  we  pass  to  the  aesthetic  department,  our  law  is 
still  more  obvious.  The  artist  notoriously  selects  his  items, 
rejecting  all  tones,  colors,  shapes,  which  do  not  harmonize 
with  each  other  and  with  the  main  purpose  of  his  work. 
That  unity,  harmony,  'convergence  of  characters/  as  M. 
Taine  calls  it,  which  gives  to  works  of  art  their  superiority 
over  works  of  nature,  is  wholly  due  to  elimination.  Any 
natural  subject  will  do,  if  the  artist  has  wit  enough  to 
pounce  upon  some  one  feature  of  it  as  characteristic,  and 
suppress  all  merely  accidental  items  which  do  not  harmo- 
nize with  this. 

Ascending  still  higher,  we  reach  the  plane  of  Ethics, 
where  choice  reigns  notoriously  supreme.  An  act  has  no 
ethical  quality  whatevei  unless  it  be  chosen  out  of  several 
all  equally  possible.  To  sustain  the  arguments  for  the 
good  course  and  keep  them  ever  before  us,  to  stifle  our 
longing  for  more  flowery  ways,  to  keep  the  foot  unflinch- 
ingly on  the  arduous  path,  these  are  characteristic  ethical 
energies.  But  more  than  these;  for  these  but  deal  with 
the  means  of  compassing  interests  already  felt  by  the  man 


174  PSYCHOLOGY. 

to  ho  supremo.  The  ethical  energy  par  excellence  has  to  go 
furl  her  and  choose  which  interest,  out  of  several,  equallj 
coercive,  shall  become  supreme.  The  issue  here  is  of  the 
utmost  pregnancy,  for  it  decides  a  man's  entire  career. 
When  he  debates,  Shall  I  commit  this  crime?  choose  that 
profession?  accept  that  office,  or  marry  this  fortune? — his 
choice  really  lies  between  one  of  several  equally  possil>!< 
future  Characters.  What  he  shall  become,  is  fixed  by  tl  e 
conduct  of  this  moment.  Schopenhauer,  who  enforces  liis 
determinism  by  the  argument  that  with  a  given  fixed  char- 
acter only  one  reaction  is  possible  under  given  circum- 
stances, forgets  that,  in  these  critical  ethical  moments, 
what  consciously  seems  to  he  :n  question  is  the  complexion 
of  the  character  itself.  The  problem  with  the  man  is  less 
what  act  he  shall  now  resolve  to  do  than  what  being  he 
shall  now  choose  to  become. 

Taking  human  experience  in  a  general  way,  the  choosings 
of  different  men  are  to  a  great  extent  the  same.  The  race 
as  a  whole  largely  agrees  as  to  what  it  shall  notice  and 
name;  and  among  the  noticed  parts  we  select  in  much 
the  same  way  for  accentuation  and  preference,  or  subordi- 
nation and  dislike.  There  is,  however,  one  entirely  extra- 
ordinary case  in  which  no  two  men  ever  are  known  to 
choose  alike.  One  great  splitting  of  the  whole  universe 
into  two  halves  is  made  by  each  of  us;  and  for  each  of  us 
almost  all  of  the  interest  attaches  to  one  of  the  halves;  but 
we  all  draw  the  liue  of  division  between  them  in  a  different 
place.  When  I  say  that  we  all  call  the  two  halves  by  the 
same  names,  and  that  those  names  are  'me'  and  'not-nie' 
respectively,  it  will  at  once  be  seen  what  I  mean.  The 
altogether  unique  kind  of  interest  which  each  human 
mind  feels  in  those  parts  of  creation  which  it  can  call  me 
or  mine  may  be  a  moral  riddle,  but  it  is  a  fundamental 
psychological  fact.  No  mind  can  take  the  same  interest  in 
his  neighbor's  me  as  in  his  own.  The  neighbor's  me  falls 
together  with  all  the  rest  of  things  in  one  foreign  mass 
against  which  his  own  me  stands  out  in  startling  relief. 


THE  STREAM  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  175 

Even  the  trodden  worm,  as  Lotze  somewhere  says,  con- 
trasts his  own  suffering  self  with  the  whole  remaining  uni- 
verse, though  he  have  no  clear  conception  either  of  himself 
or  of  what  the  universe  may  he.  He  is  for  me  a  mere  part 
of  the  world ;  for  him  it  is  I  who  am  the  mere  part.  Each 
of  us  dichotomizes  the  Kosmos  in  a  different  place. 

Descending  now  to  finer  work  than  this  first  general 
sketch,  let  us  in  the  next  chapter  try  to  trace  the  psychol- 
ogy of  this  fact  of  self-consciousness  to  which  we  have  thus 
once  more  been  led. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
THE  SELF 

The  Me  and  the  I. — Whatever  I  may  be  thinking  of,  1 
am  always  at  the  same  time  more  or  less  aware  of  myself, 
of  my  personal  existence.  At  the  same  time  it  is  J  who 
am  aware;  so  that  the  total  self  of  me,  being  as  it  were 
duplex,  partly  known  and  partly  knower,  partly  object  and 
partly  subject,  must  have  two  aspects  discriminated  in  it, 
of  which  for  shortness  we  may  call  one  the  Me  and  the 
other  the  7.  I  call  these  'discriminated  aspects/  and  not 
separate  things,  because  the  identity  of  /with  me,  even  in 
the  very  act  of  their  discrimination,  is  perhaps  the  most 
ineradicable  dictum  of  common-sense,  and  must  not  be 
undermined  by  our  terminology  here  at  the  outset,  what- 
ever we  may  come  to  think  of  its  validity  at  our  inquiry's 
end. 

I  shall  therefore  treat  successively  of  A)  the  self  as 
known,  or  the  me,  the  'empirical  ego'  as  it  is  sometimes 
called;  and  of  B)  the  self  as  knower,  or  the  I,  the  'pure 
ego '  of  certain  authors. 

A)  The  Self  as  Known. 

The  Empirical  Self  or  Me. — Between  what  a  man  calls 
me  and  what  he  simply  calls  min*  the  line  is  difficult  to 
draw.  We  feel  and  act  about  certain  things  that  are  ours 
very  much  as  we  feel  and  act  about  ourselves.  Our  fame, 
our  children,  the  work  of  our  hands,  may  be  as  dear  to  us 
as  our  bodies  are,  and  arouse  the  same  feelings  and  the 
same  acts  of  reprisal  if  attacked.  And  our  bodies  them- 
selves, are  they  simply  ours,  or  are  they  us?     Certainly 


THE  SELF.  ■      177 

men  have  been  ready  to  disown  their  very  bodies  and  to 
regard  them  as  mere  vestures,  or  even  as  prisons  of  clay 
from  which  they  should  some  day  be  glad  to  escape. 

We  see  then  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  fluctuating 
material;  the  same  object  being  sometimes  treated  as  a 
part  of  me,  at  other  times  as  simply  mine,  and  then  again 
as  if  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  it  at  all.  In  its  widest 
possible  sense,  however,  a  man's  Me  is  the  sum  total  of  all 
that  lie  can  call  his,  not  only  his  body  and  his  psychic 
powers,  but  his  clothes  and  his  house,  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren, his  ancestors  and  friends,  his  reputation  and  works, 
his  lands  and  horses,  and  yacht  and  bank-account.  All 
these  things  give  him  the  same  emotions.  If  they  wax 
and  prosper,  he  feels  triumphant;  if  they  dwindle  and  die 
away,  he  feels  cast  down, — not  necessarily  in  the  same 
degree  for  each  thing,  but  in  much  the  same  way  for  all. 
Understanding  the  Me  in  this  widest  sense,  we  may  begin 
by  dividing  the  history  of  it  into  three  parts,  relating  re- 
spectively to — 

a.  Its  constituents; 

b.  The  feelings  and  emotions  they  arouse, — self-appre- 
ciation; 

c.  The  act  to  which  they  prompt, — self-seeking  and  self- 
preservation. 

a.  The  constituents  of  the  Me  may  be  divided  into  two 
classes,  those  which  make  up  respectively — 

The  material  me; 
The  social  me;  and 
The  spiritual  me. 

The  Material  Me. — The  body  is  the  innermost  part  of  the 
material  me  in  each  of  us;  and  certain  parts  of  the  body 
seem  more  intimately  ours  than  the  rest.  The  clothes 
come  next.  The  old  saying  that  the  human  person  is  com- 
posed of  three  parts— soul,  body  and  clothes — is  more  than 
a  joke.     We  so  appropriate  our  clothes  and  identify  our 


178  PSYCHOLOGY. 

selves  with  them  that  there  are  few  of  us  who,  if  asked  to 
choose  between  having  a  beautiful  body  clad  in  raiment 
perpetually  shabby  and  unclean,  and  having  an  ugly  and 
blemished  form  always  spotlessly  attired,  would  not  hesi- 
tate a  moment  before  making  a  decisive  reply.  Next,  our 
immediate  family  is  a  part  of  ourselves.  Our  father  and 
mother,  our  wife  and  babes,  are  bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh 
of  our  flesh.  When  they  die,  a  part  of  our  very  selves  is 
gone.  If  they  do  anything  wrong,  it  is  our  shame.  If 
they  are  insulted,  our  anger  flashes  forth  as  readily  as  if  we 
stood  in  their  place.  Our  home  comes  next.  Its  scenes 
are  part  of  our  life;  its  aspects  awaken  the  tenderest 
feelings  of  affection ;  and  we  do  not  easily  forgive  the 
stranger  who,  in  visiting  it,  finds  fault  with  its  arrange- 
ments or  treats  it  with  contempt.  All  these  different 
things  are  the  objects  of  instinctive  preferences  coupled 
with  the  most  important  practical  interests  of  life.  We 
all  have  a  blind  impulse  to  watch  over  our  body,  to  deck  it 
with  clothing  of  an  ornamental  sort,  to  cherish  parents, 
wife,  and  babes,  and  to  find  for  ourselves  a  house  of  our 
own  which  we  may  live  in  and  'improve.' 

An  equally  instinctive  impulse  drives  us  to  collect  prop- 
erty; and  the  collections  thus  made  become,  with  different 
degrees  of  intimacy,  parts  of  our  empirical  selves.  The 
parts  of  our  wealth  most  intimately  ours  are  those  which 
are  saturated  with  our  labor.  There  are  few  men  who 
would  not  feel  personally  annihilated  if  a  life-long  con- 
struction of  their  hands  or  brains — say  an  entomological 
collection  or  an  extensive  work  in  manuscript — were  sud- 
denly swept  away.  The  miser  feels  similarly  towards  his 
gold;  and  although  il  is  true  that  a  part  of  our  depression 
at  the  loss  of  possessions  is  due  to  our  feeling  that  we 
must  now  go  without  certain  goods  that  we  expected  the 
possessions  to  bring  in  their  train,  yet  in  every  case  there 
remains,  over  and  above  this,  a  sense  of  the  shrinkage  of 
our  personality,  a  partial  conversion  of  ourselves  to  nothing- 
ness, which  is  a  psychological  phenomenon  by  itself.     Wl 


THE  SELF.  179 

are  all  at  once  assimilated  to  the  tramps  and  poor  devils 
whom  we  so  despise,  and  at  the  same  time  removed  far- 
ther than  ever  away  from  the  happy  sons  of  earth  who  lord 
it  over  land  and  sea  and  men  in  the  full-blown  lustihood 
that  wealth  and  power  can  give,  and  before  whom,  stiffen 
ourselves  as  we  will  by  appealing  to  anti-snobbish  first 
principles,  we  cannot  escape  an  emotion,  open  or  sneaking^ 
of  respect  and  dread. 

The  Social  Me. — A  man's  social  me  is  the  recognition 
which  he  gets  from  his  mates.  We  are  not  only  gregari- 
ous animals,  liking  to  be  in  sight  of  our  fellows,  but  we 
have  an  innate  propensity  to  get  ourselves  noticed,  and 
noticed  favorably,  by  our  kind.  No  more  fiendish  pun- 
ishment could  be  devised,  were  such  a  thing  physically 
possible,  than  that  one  should  be  turned  loose  in  society 
and  remain  absolutely  unnoticed  by  all  the  members 
thereof.  If  no  one  turned  round  when  we  entered, 
answered  Avhen  we  spoke,  or  minded  what  we  did,  but  if 
every  person  we  met  '  cut  us  dead,'  and  acted  as  if  we  were 
non-existing  things,  a  kind  of  rage  and  impotent  despair 
would  ere  long  well  up  in  us,  from  which  the  cruellest 
bodily  tortures  would  be  a  relief;  for  these  would  make  us 
feel  that,  however  bad  might  be  our  plight,  we  had  not 
eunk  to  such  a  depth  as  to  be  unworthy  of  attention  at  all. 

Properly  speaking,  a  man  has  as  many  social  selves  as 
there  are  individuals  who  recognize  him  and  carry  an 
image  of  him  in  their  mind.  To  wound  any  one  of  these 
his  images  is  to  wound  him.  But  as  the  individuals  who 
carry  the  images  fall  naturally  into  classes,  we  may  practi- 
cally say  that  he  has  as  many  different  social  selves  as 
there  are  distinct  groups  of  persons  about  whose  opinion 
he  cares.  He  generally  shows  a  different  side  of  himself 
to  each  of  these  different  groups.  Many  a  youth  who  is 
demure  enough  before  his  parents  and  teachers,  swears  and 
swaggers  like  a  pirate  among  his  '  tough '  young  friends. 
We  do  not  show  ourselves  to  our  children  as  to  our  club- 
companions,  to  our  customers  as  to  the  laborers  we  em- 


180  PSYCHOLOGY. 

ploy,  to  our  own  masters  and  employers  as  to  our  intimate 

friends.  From  this  there  results  what  practically  is  a 
division  of  the  man  into  several  selves;  and  this  may  be  a 
discordant  splitting,  as  where  one  is  afraid  to  let  one  set  of 
his  acquaintances  know  him  as  he  is  elsewhere;  or  it  may 
be  a  perfectly  harmonious  division  of  labor,  as  where  one 
tender  to  his  children  is  stern  to  the  soldiers  or  prisoners 
under  his  command. 

The  most  peculiar  social  self  which  one  is  apt  to  have 
is  in  the  mind  of  the  person  one  is  in  love  with.  The 
good  or  bad  fortunes  of  this  self  cause  the  most  intense 
elation  and  dejection — unreasonable  enough  as  measured 
by  every  other  standard  than  that  of  the  organic  feeling  of 
the  individual.  To  his  own  consciousness  he  is  not,  so  long 
as  this  particular  social  self  fails  to  get  recognition,  and 
when  it  is  recognized  his  contentment  passes  all  bounds. 

A  man's  fame,  good  or  bad,  and  his  honor  or  dishonor, 
are  names  for  one  of  his  social  selves.  The  particular 
social  self  of  a  man  called  his  honor  is  usually  the  result 
of  one  of  those  splittings  of  which  we  have  spoken.  It  is 
his  image  in  the  eyes  of  his  own  'set,'  which  exalts  or  con- 
demns him  as  he  conforms  or  not  to  certain  requirements 
that  may  not  be  made  of  one  in  another  walk  of  life.  Thus 
a  layman  may  abandon  a  city  infected  with  cholera;  but  a 
priest  or  a  doctor  would  think  such  an  act  incompatible 
with  his  honor.  A  soldier's  honor  requires  him  to  fight  or 
to  die  under  circumstances  where  another  man  can  apolo- 
gize or  run  away  with  no  stain  upon  his  social  self.  A 
judge,  a  statesman,  are  in  like  manner  debarred  by  the 
honor  of  their  cloth  from  entering  into  pecuniary  relations 
perfectly  honorable  to  persons  in  private  life.  Nothing  is 
commoner  than  to  hear  people  discriminate  between  their 
different  selves  of  this  sort:  "As  a  man  I  pity  you,  but  as 
an  official  I  must  show  you  no  mercy";  "As  a  politician  I 
regard  him  as  an  ally,  but  as  a  moralist  I  loathe  him  ";  etc., 
etc.  What  may  be  called  'club-opinion'  is  one  of  the  very 
strongest  forces  in   life.     The  thief  must  not  steal  from 


THE  SELF.  181 

other  thieves;  the  gambler  must  pay  his  gambling-debts, 
though  he  pay  no  other  debts  in  the  world.  The  code  of 
honor  of  fashionable  society  has  throughout  history  been 
full  of  permissions  as  well  as  of  vetoes,  the  only  reason  for 
following  either  of  which  is  that  so  we  best  serve  one  of 
our  social  selves.  You  must  not  lie  in  general,  but  you 
may  lie  as  much  as  you  please  if  asked  about  your  relations 
with  a  lady;  you  must  accept  a  challenge  from  an  equal, 
but  if  challenged  by  an  inferior  you  may  laugh  him  to 
scorn :  these  are  examples  of  what  is  meant. 

The  Spiritual  Me. — By  the  'spiritual  me,'  so  far  as  it 
belongs  to  the  empirical  self,  I  mean  no  one  of  my  passing 
states  of  consciousness.  I  mean  rather  the  entire  collection 
of  my  states  of  consciousness,  my  psychic  faculties  and  dis- 
positions taken  concretely.  This  collection  can  at  any  mo- 
ment become  an  object  to  my  thought  at  that  moment  and 
awaken  emotions  like  those  awakened  by  any  of  the  other 
portions  of  the  Me.  When  Ave  fln'/ik  of  ourselves  as  fJi  ink- 
ers, all  the  other  ingredients  of  our  Me  seem  relatively  ex- 
ternal possessions.  Even  within  the  spiritual  Me  some 
ingredients  seem  more  external  than  others.  Our  capaci- 
ties for  sensation,  for  example,  are  less  intimate  possessions, 
so  to  speak,  than  our  emotions  and  desires;  our  intellectual 
processes  are  less  intimate  than  our  volitional  decisions. 
The  more  active-feeling  states  of  consciousness  are  thus 
the  more  central  portions  of  the  spiritual  Me.  The  very 
core  and  nucleus  of  our  self,  as  we  know  it,  the  very  sanc- 
tuary of  our  life,  is  the  sense  of  activity  which  certain  inner 
states  possess.  This  sense  of  activity  is  often  held  to  be 
a  direct  revelation  of  the  living  substance  of  our  Soul. 
Whether  this  be  so  or  not  is  an  ulterior  question.  I  wish 
now  only  to  lay  down  the  peculiar  internality  of  whatever 
states  possess  this  quality  of  seeming  to  be  active.  It  is 
as  if  they  went  out  to  meet  all  the  other  elements  of  our 
experience.  In  thus  feeling  about  them  probably  all  mer 
agree. 


182  PSYCHOLOGY. 

h.  The  feelings  and  emotions  of  self  come  after  the  con- 
stituents. 

Self-appreciation. — This  is  of  two  sorts,  self-complacency 
and  self -dissatisfaction.  '  Self-love'  more  properly  belongs 
under  the  division  G,  of  acts,  since  what  men  mean  by  that 
name  is  rather  a  set  of  motor  tendencies  than  a  kind  of 
feeling  properly  so  called. 

Language  has  synonyms  enough  for  both  kinds  of  self- 
appreciation.  Thus  pride,  conceit,  vanity,  self-esteem, 
anoyance,  vainglory,  on  the  one  hand;  and  on  the  other 
modesty,  humility,  confusion,  diffidence,  shame,  mortifica- 
tion, contrition,  the  sense  of  obloquy,  and  personal  despair. 
These  two  opposite  classes  of  affection  seem  to  be  direct 
and  elementary  endowments  of  our  nature.  Associationists 
would  have  it  that  they  are,  on  the  other  hand,  secondary 
phenomena  arising  from  a  rapid  computation  of  the  sensi- 
ble pleasures  or  pains  to  which  our  prosperous  or  debased 
personal  predicament  is  likely  to  lead,  the  sum  of  the  repre- 
sented pleasures  forming  the  self-satisfaction,  and  the  sum 
of  the  represented  pains  forming  the  opposite  feeling  of 
shame.  No  doubt,  when  we  are  self-satisfied,  we  do  fondly 
rehearse  all  possible  rewards  for  our  desert,  and  when  in  a 
fit  of  self-despair  we  forebode  evil.  But  the  mere  expecta- 
tion of  reward  is  not  the  self-satisfaction,  and  the  mere 
apprehension  of  the  evil  is  not  the  self-despair;  for  there  is 
a  certain  average  tone  of  self-feeling  which  each  one  of  us 
carries  about  with  him,  and  which  is  independent  of  the 
objective  reasons  we  may  have  for  satisfaction  or  discon- 
tent. That  is,  a  very  meanly-conditioned  man  may  abound 
in  unfaltering  conceit,  and  one  whose  success  in  life  is 
Beau  re,  and  who  is  esteemed  by  all,  may  remain  diffident 
of  his  powers  to  the  end. 

One  may  say,  however,  that  the  normal  provocative  of 
self-feeling  is  one's  actual  success  or  failure,  and  the  good 
or  bad  actual  position  one  holds  in  the  world.  "  He  put  in 
his  thumb  and  pulled  out  a  plum,  and  said,  '  What  a  good 


THE  SELF  183 

boy  am  IV"  A  man  with  a  broadiy  extended  empirical  Ego, 
with  powers  that  have  uniformly  brought  him  success,  with 
place  and  wealth  and  friends  and  fame,  is  not  likely  to  be 
visited  by  the  morbid  diffidences  and  doubts  about  himself 
which  he  had  when  he  was  a  boy.  "  Is  not  this  great 
Babylon,  which  I  have  planted  ?  "  Whereas  he  who  has 
made  one  blunder  after  another,  and  still  lies  in  middle  life 
among  the  failures  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  is  liable  to  grow 
all  sicklied  o'er  with  self-distrust,  and  to  shrink  from  trials 
with  which  his  powers  can  really  cope. 

The  emotions  themselves  of  self-satisfaction  and  abase- 
ment are  of  a  unique  sort,  each  as  worthy  to  be  classed  as 
a  primitive  emotional  species  as  are,  for  example,  rage  or 
pain.  Each  has  its  own  peculiar  physiognomical  expres- 
sion. In  self-satisfaction  the  extensor  muscles  are  inner- 
vated, the  eye  is  strong  and  glorious,  the  gait  rolling  and 
elastic,  the  nostril  dilated,  and  a  peculiar  smile  plays  upon 
the  lips.  This  whole  complex  of  symptoms  is  seen  in  an 
exquisite  way  in  lunatic  asylums,  which  always  contain 
some  patients  who  are  literally  mad  with  conceit,  and 
whose  fatuous  expression  and  absurdly  strutting  or  swag- 
gering gait  is  in  tragic  contrast  with  their  lack  of  any 
valuable  personal  quality.  It  is  in  these  same  castles  of 
despair  that  we  find  the  strongest  examples  of  the  opj)osite 
physiognomy,  in  good  people  who  think  they  have  com- 
mitted '  the  unpardonable  sin '  and  are  lost  forever,  who 
crouch  and  cringe  and  slink  from  notice,  and  are  unable 
to  speak  aloud  or  look  us  in  the  eye.  Like  fear  and  like 
anger,  in  similar  morbid  conditions,  these  opposite  feelings 
of  Self  may  be  aroused  with  no  adequate  exciting  cause. 
And  in  fact  we  ourselves  know  how  the  barometer  of  our 
self-esteem  and  confidence  rises  and  falls  from  one  day  tc 
another  through  causes  that  seem  to  be  visceral  and  organic 
rather  than  rational,  and  which  certainly  answer  to  no  cor- 
responding variations  in  the  esteem  in  which  we  are  held 
by  our  friends. 


184  PSYCHOLOGY. 

c.  Self-seeking  and  self-preservation  come  next. 

These  winds  cover  a  large  number  of  our  fundamental 
instinctive  impulses.  We  have  those  of  bodily  self-seeking, 
those  of  social  self-seeking,  and  those  of  spiritual  self-seek- 
ing. 

Bodily  Self-seeking. — All  the  ordinary  useful  reflex  ac- 
tions and  movements  of  alimentation  and  defence  are  acts 
of  bodily  self-preservation.  Fear  and  anger  prompt  to  acts 
that  are  useful  in  the  same  way.  Whilst  if  by  self-seeking 
we  mean  the  providing  for  the  future  as  distinguished 
from  maintaining  the  present,  we  must  class  both  anger 
and  fear,  together  with  the  hunting,  the  acquisitive,  the 
home-constructing  and  the  tool-constructing  instincts,  as 
impulses  to  self-seeking  of  the  bodily  kind.  Really,  how- 
ever, these  latter  instincts,  with  amativeness,  parental 
fondness,  curiosity  and  emulation,  seek  not  only  the  de- 
velopment of  the  bodily  Me,  but  that  of  the  material  Me 
in  the  widest  possible  sense  of  the  word. 

Our  social  self-seeking,  in  turn,  is  carried  on  directly 
through  our  amativeness  and  friendliness,  our  desire  to 
please  and  attract  notice  and  admiration,  our  emulation 
and  jealousy,  our  love  of  glory,  influence,  and  power, 
and  indirectly  through  whichever  of  the  material  self- 
seeking  impulses  prove  serviceable  as  means  to  social 
ends.  That  the  direct  social  self-seeking  impulses  are 
probably  pure  instincts  is  easily  seen.  The  noteworthy 
thing  about  the  desire  to  be  '  recognized '  by  others  is  that 
its  strength  has  so  little  to  do  with  the  worth  of  the  recog- 
nition computed  in  sensational  or  rational  terms.  We  are 
crazy  to  get  a  visiting-list  which  shall  be  large,  to  be  able 
to  say  when  any  one  is  mentioned,  "  Oh  !  I  know  him 
well,"  and  to  be  bowed  to  in  the  street  by  half  the  people 
we  meet.  Of  course  distinguished  friends  and  admiring 
recognition  are  the  most  desirable — Thackeray  somewhere 
asks  his  readers  to  confess  whether  it  would  not  give  each 
of  them  an  exquisite  pleasure  to  be  met  walking  down  Pall 
Mall  with  a  duke  on  either  arm.     But  in  default  of  dukes 


THE  SELF.  185 

and  envious  salutions  almost  anything  will  do  for  some  of 
us;  and  there  is  a  whole  race  of  beings  to-day  whose  pas- 
sion is  to  keep  their  names  in  the  newspapers,,  no  matter 
under  what  heading,  '  arrivals  and  departures/  '  personal 
paragraphs/  '  interviews/ — gossip,  even  scandal,  will  suit 
them  if  nothing  better  is  to  be  had.  Guiteau,  Garfield's 
assassin,  is  an  example  of  the  extremity  to  which  this  sort 
of  craving  for  the  notoriety  of  print  may  go  in  a  patholo- 
gical case.  The  newspapers  bounded  his  mental  horizon; 
and  in  the  poor  wretch's  prayer  on  the  scaffold,  one  of  the 
most  heart-felt  expressions  was :  "  The  newspaper  press  of 
this  land  has  a  big  bill  to  settle  with  thee,  0  Lord  I" 

Not  only  the  people  but  the  places  and  things  I  know 
enlarge  my  Self  in  a  sort  of  metaphoric  social  way.  '  (7« 
me  commit,'  as  the  French  workman  says  of  the  implement 
he  can  use  well.  So  that  it  comes  about  that  persons  for 
whose  opinion  Ave  care  nothing  are  nevertheless  persons 
Whose  notice  we  avoo;  and  that  many  a  man  truly  great, 
many  a  woman  truly  fastidious  in  most  respects,  will  take 
a  deal  of  trouble  to  dazzle  some  insignificant  cad  whose 
whole  personality  they  heartily  despise. 

Under  the  head  of  spiritual  self-seeking  ought  to  be 
included  every  impulse  toAvards  psychic  progress,  whether 
intellectual,  moral,  or  spiritual  in  the  narrow  sense  of  the 
term.  It  must  be  admitted,  hoAvever,  that  much  that  com- 
monly passes  for  spiritual  self-seeking  in  this  narrow  sense 
is  only  material  and  social  self-seeking  beyond  the  grave. 
In  the  Mohammedan  desire  for  paradise  and  the  Christian 
aspiration  not  to  be  damned  in  hell,  the  materiality  of  the 
goods  sought  is  undisguised.  In  the  more  positive  and 
refined  vieAV  of  heaven,  many  of  its  goods,  the  fellowship  of 
the  saints  and  of  our  dead  ones,  and  the  presence  of  God, 
are  but  social  goods  of  the  most  exalted  kind.  It  is  only 
the  search  of  the  redeemed  inward  nature,  the  spotlessness 
from  sin,  whether  here  or  hereafter,  that  can  count  as 
spiritual  self-seeking  pure  and  undefiled. 


ISO  PSYCHOLOGY. 

But  this  broad  external  review  of  the  facts  of  the  life  of 
the  Me  will  be  incomplete  without  some  account  of  the 

Rivalry  and  Conflict  of  the  Different  Mes.— With  most 
objects  of  desire,  physical  nature  restricts  our  choice  to 
but  one  of  many  represented  goods,  and  even  so  it  is  here. 
1  am  often  confronted  by  the  necessity  of  standing  by  one 
of  my  empirical  selves  and  relinquishing  the  rest.     Not 
that  I  would  not,  if  I  could,  be  both  handsome  and  fat 
and  well  dressed,  and  a  great  athlete,  and  make  a  million 
a  year,  be  a  wit,  a  bon-vivant,  and  a  lady-killer,  as  well  as 
a  philosopher;   a  philanthropist,  statesman,  warrior,  and 
African  explorer,  as  well  as  a  '  tone-poet '  and  saint.     But 
the  thing  is  simply  impossible.     The   millionaire's  work 
would  run  counter  to  the  saint's;  the  bon-vivant  and  the 
philanthropist  would  trip  each  other  up;  the  philosopher 
and  the  lady-killer  could  not  well  keep  house  in  the  same 
tenement  of  clay.     Such  different  characters  may  conceiv- 
ably at  the  outset  of  life  be  alike  possible  to  a  man.     But 
to  make  any  one  of  them  actual,  the  rest  must  more  or  less 
be   suppressed.     So   the   seeker   of   his   truest,  strongest, 
deepest  self  must  review  the  list  carefully,  and  pick  out 
the  one  on  which  to  stake  his  salvation.     All  other  selves 
thereupon  become  unreal,  but  the  fortunes  of  this  self  are 
real.     Its  failures  are  real  failures,  its  triumphs  real  tri- 
umphs, carrying  shame  and  gladness  with  them.     This  is 
as  strong  an  example  as  there  is  of  that  selective  industry 
of  the  mind  on  which  I  insisted  some  pages  back  (p.  173  ff.). 
Our  thought,  incessantly  deciding,  among  many  things  of 
;i  kind,  which  ones  for  it  shall  be  realities,  here  chooses 
one  of  many  possible  selves  or  characters,  and  forthwith 
reckons  it  no  shame  to  fail  in  any  of  those  not  adopted 
expressly  as  its  own. 

So  we  have   the   paradox  of  a  man  shamed  to  death 
because  he  is  only  the  second  pugilist  or  the  second  oars- 
man in  the    world      That    be  is  able  to  beat    the  whole 
population  of    the   globe    minus   one  is  nothing;  he  bas 
pitted'  himself  to  beat  that  one;  and  , is  long  as  he  doesn't 


TEE  SELF.  187 

do  that  nothing  else  counts.  He  is  to  his  own  regard  as  if 
he  were  not,  indeed  he  is  not.  Yonder  puny  fellow,  how- 
ever, whom  every  one  can  beat,  suffers  no  chagrin  about  it, 
for  he  has  long  ago  abandoned  the  attempt  to  '  carry  that 
line,'  as  the  merchants  say,  of  self  at  all.  With  no  attempt 
there  can  be  no  failure;  with  no  failure,  no  humiliation. 
So  our  self-feeling  in  this  world  depends  entirely  on  what 
we  back  ourselves  to  be  and  do.  It  is  determined  by  the 
ratio  of  our  actualities  to  our  supposed  potentialities;  a 
fraction  of  which  our  pretensions  are  the  denominator  and 
the  numerator  our  success:  thus, 

,,  ,„  Success 

Seli-esteem 


Pretensions 

Such  a  fraction  may  be  increased  as  well  by  diminishing 
the  denominator  as  by  increasing  the  numerator.  To 
give  up  pretensions  is  as  blessed  a  relief  as  to  get  them 
gratified;  and  where  disappointment  is  incessant  and  the 
struggle  unending,  this  is  what  men  will  always  do.  The 
history  of  evangelical  theology,  with  its  conviction  of  sin, 
its  self-despair,  and  its  abandonment  of  salvation  by 
works,  is  the  deepest  of  possible  examples,  but  we  meet 
others  in  every  walk  of  life.  There  is  the  strangest  light- 
ness about  the  heart  when  one's  nothingness  in  a  particular 
line  is  once  accepted  in  good  faith.  All  is  not  bitterness  in 
the  lot  of  the  lover  sent  away  by  the  final  inexorable  '  No.' 
Many  Bostonians,  crede  experto  (and  inhabitants  of  other 
cities,  too,  I  fear),  would  be  happier  women  and  men  to-day, 
if  they  could  once  for  all  abandon  the  notion  of  keeping  up 
a  Musical  Self,  and  without  shame  let  people  hear  them 
call  a  symphony  a  nuisance.  How  pleasant  is  the  day  when 
we  give  up  striving  to  be  young, — or  slender!  Thank  God! 
we  say,  those  illusions  are  gone.  Everything  added  to  the 
Self  is  a  burden  as  well  as  a  pride.  A  certain  man  who 
lost  every  penny  during  our  civil  war  went  and  actually 
rolled  in  the  dust,  saying  he  had  not  felt  so  free  and  happy 
since  he  was  born. 


188  PSYCHOLOGY. 

Once  more,  then,  our  self- feeling  is  in  our  power.  As 
Carlyle  says:  "  Make  thy  claim  of  wages  a  zero,  then  hast 
thou  the  world  under  thy  feet.  Well  did  the  wisest  of  our 
time  write,  it  is  only  with  renunciation  that  life,  properly 
speaking,  can  be  said  to  begin." 

Neither  threats  nor  pleadings  can  move  a  man  unless 
they  touch  some  one  of  his  potential  or  actual  selves.  Only 
thus  can  we,  as  a  rule,  get  a  'purchase'  on  another's  will. 
The  first  care  of  diplomatists  and  monarchs  and  all  who 
wish  to  rule  or  influence  is,  accordingly,  to  find  out  their 
victim's  strongest  principle  of  self-regard,  so  as  to  make 
that  the  fulcrum  of  all  appeals.  But  if  a  man  has  given  up 
those  things  which  are  subject  to  foreign  fate,  and  ceased 
to  regard  them  as  parts  of  himself  at  all,  we  are  well-nigh 
powerless  over  him.  The  Stoic  receipt  for  contentment 
was  to  dispossess  yourself  in  advance  of  all  that  was  out  of 
your  own  power, — then  fortune's  shocks  might  rain  down 
unfelt.  Epictetus  exhorts  us,  by  thus  narrowing  and  at  the 
same  time  solidifying  our  Self  to  make  it  invulnerable:  "1 
must  die;  well,  hut  must  I  die  groaning  too  ?  I  will  speak 
what  appears  to  be  right,  and  if  the  despot  says,  'Then  I 
will  put  you  to  death,'  I  will  reply,  'When  did  I  ever  tell 
you  that  I  was  immortal  ?  You  will  do  your  part,  and  I 
mine;  it  is  yours  to  kill,  and  mine  to  die  intrepid;  yours 
to  banish,  mine  to  depart  untroubled.'  How  do  we  act  in  a 
voyage  ?  We  choose  the  pilot,  the  sailors,  the  hour.  After- 
wards  comes  a  storm.  What  have  I  to  care  for  ?  My  part 
is  performed.  This  matter  belongs  to  the  pilot.  But  the 
ship  is  sinking;  what  then  have  I  to  do  ?  That  which  alone 
I  can  do — submit'  to  being  drowned  without  fear,  without 
clamor  or  accusing  of  God,  but  as  one  who  knows  that 
what  is  born  must  likewise  die." 

This  Stoic  fashion,  though  efficacious  and  heroic  enough 
in  its  place  and  time,  is,  it  must  be  confessed,  only  possible 
as  an  habitual  mood  of  the  soul  to  narrow  and  unsympa- 
thetic characters.  It  proceeds  altogether  by  exclusion.  If 
I  am  a  Stoic,  the  goods  I  cannot  appropriate  cease  to  be  my 


THE  SELF.  189 

goods,  and  the  temptation  lies  very  near  to  deny  that  they 
are  goods  at  all.  We  find  this  mode  of  protecting  the  Self 
by  exclusion  and  denial  very  common  among  people  who 
are  in  other  respects  not  Stoics.  All  narrow  people  intrench 
their  Me,  they  retract  it, — from  the  region  of  what  they 
cannot  securely  possess.  People  who  don't  resemble  them, 
or  who  treat  them  with  indifference,  people  over  whom  they 
gain  no  influence,  are  people  on  whose  existence,  however 
meritorious  it  may  intrinsically  be,  they  look  with  chill 
negation,  if  not  with  positive  hate.  Who  will  not  be  mine 
I  will  exclude  from  existence  altogether;  that  is,  as  far  as 
I  can  make  it  so,  such  peojDle  shall  be  as  if  they  were  not. 
Thus  may  a  certain  absoluteness  and  definiteness  in  the  out^ 
line  of  my  Me  console  me  for  the  smallness  of  its  content. 
Sympathetic  people,  on  the  contrary,  proceed  by  the 
entirely  opposite  way  of  expansion  and  inclusion.  The 
outline  of  their  self  often  gets  uncertain  enough,  but  for 
this  the  spread  of  its  content  more  than  atones.  Nil 
liumani  a  me  alienum.  Let  them  despise  this  little  per- 
son of  mine,  and  treat  me  like  a  dog,  1  shall  not  negate 
them  so  long  as  I  have  a  soul  in  my  body.  They  are  reali- 
ties as  much  as  I  am.  What  jiositive  good  is  in  them  shall 
be  mine  too,  etc.,  etc.  The  magnanimity  of  these  expansive 
natures  is  often  touching  indeed.  Such  persons  can  feel 
a  sort  of  delicate  rapture  in  thinking  that,  however  sick, 
ill-favored,  mean-conditioned,  and  generally  forsaken  they 
may  be,  they  yet  are  integral  parts  of  the  whole  of  this 
brave  world,  have  a  fellow's  share  in  the  strength  of  the 
dray-horses,  the  happiness  of  the  young  people,  the  wisdom 
of  the  wise  ones,  and  are  not  altogether  without  part  or  lot 
in  the  good  fortunes  of  the  Vanderbilts  and  the  Hohen- 
zollerns  themselves.  Thus  either  by  negating  or  by  em- 
bracing, the  Ego  may  seek  to  establish  itself  in  reality. 
He  who,  with  Marcus  Aurelius,  can  truly  say,  "  0  Universe, 
I  wish  all  that  thou  wishest,"  has  a  self  from  which  every 
trace  of  negativeness  and  obstructiveness  has  been  re- 
moved— no  wind  can  blow  except  to  fill  its  sails. 


190  PSYCHOLOGY. 

The  Hierarchy  of  the  Mes. — A  tolerably  unanimous 
opinion  ranges  the  different  selves  of  which  a  man  may  be 
'seized  and  possessed/  and  the  consequent  different  orders 
of  his  self-regard,  in  an  hierarchical  scale,  with  the  bodily 
me  at  the  bottom,  the  spiritual  vie  at  top,  and  the  exlra-cor 
poreal  material  selves  and  ths  various  social  selves  between 
Our  merely  natural  self-seeking  would  lead  us  to  aggran 
dize  all  these  selves;  we  give  up  deliberately  only  those 
among  them  Avhich  we  find  we  cannot  keep.  Our  unself- 
ishness is  thus  apt  to  be  a  'virtue  of  necessity';  and  it  is 
not  without  all  show  of  reason  that  cynics  quote  the  fable 
of  the  fox  and  the  grapes  in  describing  our  progress 
therein.  But  this  is  the  moral  education  of  the  race;  and 
if  we  agree  in  the  result  that  on  the  whole  the  selves  we 
can  keep  are  the  intrinsically  best,  we  need  not  complain 
of  being  led  to  the  knowledge  of  their  superior  worth  iu 
such  a  tortuous  way. 

Of  course  this  is  not  the  only  way  in  which  we  learn 
to  subordinate  our  lower  selves  to  our  higher.  A  direct 
ethical  judgment  unquestionably  also  plays  its  part,  and 
last,  not  least,  wre  apply  to  our  own  persons  judgments 
originally  called  forth  by  the  acts  of  others.  It  is  one  of 
the  strangest  laws  of  our  nature  that  many  things  which 
we  are  well  satisfied  with  in  ourselves  disgust  us  when  seen 
in  others.  With  another  man's  bodily  'hoggishness' 
hardly  anyone  has  any  sympathy;  almost  as  little  with 
his  cupidity,  his  social  vanity  and  eagerness,  his  jealousy, 
his  despotism,  and  his  pride.  Left  absolutely  to  myself  I 
should  probably  allow  all  these  spontaneous  tendencies  to 
luxuriate  in  me  unchecked,  and  it  would  be  long  before  1 
formed  a  distinct  notion  of  the  order  of  their  subordina- 
tion. But  having  constantly  to  pass  judgment  on  my 
associates,  1  come  ere  long  to  see,  as  Herr  Horwicz  says, 
my  own  lusts  in  the  mirror  of  the  lusts  of  others,  and  to 
th ink  about  them  in  a  very  different  way  from  that  in 
which  I  simply  feel.  Of  course,  the  moral  generalities 
which  from  childhood  have  been  instilled  into  nie  acceler 


THE  SELF.  191 

ate  enormously  the  advent  of  this  reflective  judgment  on 
myself. 

So  it  comes  to  pass  that,  as  aforesaid,  men  have  arranged 
the  various  selves  which  they  may  seek  in  an  hierarchical 
scale  according  to  their  worth.  A  certain  amount  of 
bodily  selfishness  is  required  as  a  basis  for  all  the  othei 
selves.  But  too  much  sensuality  is  despised,  or  at  best 
condoned  on  account  of  the  other  qualities  of  the  indi- 
vidual. The  wider  material  selves  are  regarded  as  higher 
than  the  immediate  body.  He  is  esteemed  a  poor  creature 
who  is  unable  to  forego  a  little  meat  and  drink  and  warmth 
and  sleep  for  the  sake  of  getting  on  in  the  world.  The 
social  self  as  a  whole,  again,  ranks  higher  than  the  material 
self  as  a  whole.  We  must  care  more  for  our  honor,  our 
friends,  our  human  ties,  than  for  a  sound  skin  or  wealth. 
And  the  spiritual  self  is  so  supremely  precious  that,  rather 
than  lose  it,  a  man  ought  to  be  willing  to  give  up  friends 
and  good  fame,  and  property,  and  life  itself. 

In  each  hind  of  Me,  material,  social,  and  spiritual,  men 
distinguish  between  the  immediate  and  actual,  and  the  re- 
mote and  potential,  between  the  narrower  and  the  wider 
view,  to  the  detriment  of  the  former  and  the  advantage  of 
the  latter.  One  must  forego  a  present  bodily  enjoyment 
for  the  sake  of  one's  general  health;  one  must  abandon  the 
dollar  in  the  hand  for  the  sake  of  the  hundred  dollars  to 
come ;  one  must  make  an  enemy  of  his  present  interlocutor 
if  thereby  one  makes  friends  of  a  more  valued  circle;  one 
must  go  without  learning  and  grace  and  wit,  the  better  to 
compass  one's  soul's  salvation. 

Of  all  these  wider,  more  potential  selves,  the  potential 
social  Me  is  the  most  interesting,  by  reason  of  certain 
apparent  paradoxes  to  which  it  leads  in  conduct,  and  by 
\eason  of  its  connection  with  our  moral  and  religious  life. 
Xnen  for  motives  of  honor  and  conscience  I  brave  the 
condemnation  of  my  own  family,  club,  and  'set';  when,  as 
a  Protestant,  I  turn  Catholic;  as  a  Catholic,  freethinker. 
as  a  'regular  practitioner,'  homoeopath,  or  what  not,  1  an; 


192  IkYCUOLOOr. 

always  inwardly  strengthened  in  my  couise  and  steeled 
against  the  loss  of  my  actual  social  self  by  the  thought  of 
other  and  better  possible  social  judges  than  those  whose 
verJict  goes  against  me  now.  The  ideal  social  self  which 
I  thus  seek  in  appealing  to  their  decision  may  be  very 
remote:  it  may  be  represented  as  barely  possible.  I  may 
not  hope  for  its  realization  during  my  lifetime;  I  may  even 
expect  the  future  generations,  which  would  approve  me  if 
they  knew  me,  to  know  nothing  about  me  when  I  am  dead 
and  gone.  Yet  still  the  emotion  that  beckons  me  on  is 
indubitably  the  pursuit  of  an  ideal  social  self,  of  a  self  that 
is  at  least  worthy  of  approving  recognition  by  the  highest 
possible  judging  companion,  if  such  companion  there  be 
This  self  is  the  true,  the  intimate,  the  ultimate,  the  per 
manent  me  which  I  seek.  This  judge  is  God,  the  Absolute 
Mind,  the  'Great  Companion/  We  hear,  in  these  days  of 
scientific  enlightenment,  a  great  deal  of  discussion  about 
the  efficacy  of  prayer;  and  many  reasons  are  given  us  why 
we  should  not  pray,  whilst  others  are  given  us  why  we 
should.  But  in  all  this  very  little  is  said  of  the  reason 
why  we  do  pray,  which  is  simply  that  we  cannot  help  pray- 
ing. It  seems  probable  that,  hi  spite  of  all  that  'science' 
may  do  to  the  contrary,  men  will  continue  to  pray  to  the 
end  of  time,  unless  their  mental  nature  changes  in  a  man- 
ner which  nothing  Ave  know  should  lead  us  to  expect. 
The  impulse  to  pray  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  fact 
that  whilst  the  innermost  of  the  empirical  selves  of  a  man 
is  a  Self  of  the  social  sort,  it  yet  can  find  its  only  adequate 
Socius  in  an  ideal  world. 

All  progress  in  the  social  Self  is  the  substitution  of 
higher  tribunals  for  lower;  this  ideal  tribunal  is  the  high- 
est; and  most  men,  either  continually  or  occasionally, 
carry  a  reference  to  it  in  their  breast.  The  humblest  out- 
cast on  this  earth  can  feel  himself  to  be  real  and  valid  by 
means  of  this  higher  recognition.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
for  most  of  us,  a  world  with  no  such  inner  refuge  when 
the  outer  social  self  failed  and  dropped  from  us  would  be 


THE  SELF.  193 

the  abyss  of  horror.  I  say  'for  most  of  us,'  because  it  is 
probable  that  individuals  differ  a  good  deal  in  the  degree 
in  which  they  are  haunted  by  this  sense  of  an  ideal  specta- 
tor. It  is  a  much  more  essential  part  of  the  consciousness 
of  some  men  than  of  others.  Those  who  have  the  most  of 
it  are  possibly  the  most  religious  men.  But  I  am  sure  that 
even  those  who  say  they  are  altogether  without  it  deceive 
themselves,  and  really  have  it  in  some  degree.  Only  a 
non-gregarious  animal  could  be  completely  without  it. 
Probably  no  one  can  make  sacrifices  for  '  right/  without 
to  some  degree  personifying  the  principle  of  right  for 
which  the  sacrifice  is  made,  and  expecting  thanks  from  it. 
Complete  social  unselfishness,  in  other  words,  can  hardly 
exist;  complete  social  suicide  hardly  occur  to  a  man's 
mind.  Even  such  texts  as  Job's,  "  Though  He  slay  me, 
yet  will  I  trust  Him,"  or  Marcus  Aurelius's,  "  If  gods  hate 
me  and  my  children,  there  is  a  reason  for  it,"  can  least  of  all 
be  cited  to  prove  the  contrary.  For  beyond  all  doubt  Job 
revelled  in  the  thought  of  Jehovah's  recognition  of  the 
worship  after  the  slaying  should  have  been  done;  and  the 
Roman  emperor  felt  sure  the  Absolute  Reason  would  not 
be  all  indifferent  to  his  acquiescence  in  the  gods'  dislike. 
The  old  test  of  piety,  "  Are  you  willing  to  be  damned  for 
the  glory  of  God  ?"  was  probably  never  answered  in  the 
affirmative  except  by  those  who  felt  sure  in  their  heart  of 
hearts  that  God  would  '  credit '  them  with  their  willing- 
ness, and  set  more  store  by  them  thus  than  if  in  His  un- 
fathomable scheme  He  had  not  damned  them  at  all. 

Teleological  Uses  of  Self-interest. — On  zoological  princi- 
ples it  is  easy  to  see  why  we  have  been  endowed  with 
impulses  of  self-seeking  and  with  emotions  of  self-satis- 
faction and  the  reverse.  Unless  our  consciousness  were 
something  more  than  cognitive,  unless  it  experienced  a 
partiality  for  certain  of  the  objects,  which,  in  succession, 
occupy  its  ken,  it  could  not  long  maintain  itself  in  exist- 
ence; for,  by  an  inscrutable  necessity,  each  human  mind's 
appearance  on  this  earth  is  conditioned  upon  the  integrity 


194  PSFOSOLOOr. 

of  the  body  with  which  it  belongs,  upon  the  treatment 
which  that  body  gets  from  others,  and  upon  the  spiritual 
dispositions  which  use  it  as  their  tool,  and  lead  it  either 
towards  longevity  or  to  destruction.  Its  own  body,  then, 
first  of  all,  its  friends  next,  and  finally  its  spiritual  dii. 
positions,  must  be  the  supremely  interesting  objects  for  each 
human  wind.  Each  mind,  to  begin  with,  must  have  a 
certain  minimum  of  selfishness  in  the  shape  of  instincts  oi 
bodily  self-seeking  in  order  to  exist.  This  minimum  must 
be  there  as  a  basis  for  all  farther  conscious  acts,  whether 
of  self-negation  or  of  a  selfishness  more  subtle  still.  All 
minds  must  have  come,  by  the  way  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest,  if  by  no  directer  path,  to  take  an  intense  interest  in 
the  bodies  to  which  they  are  yoked,  altogether  apart  from 
any  interest  in  the  pure  Ego  which  they  also  possess. 

And  similarly  with  the  images  of  their  person  in  the 
minds  of  others.  I  should  not  be  extant  now  had  I  not 
become  sensitive  to  looks  of  approval  or  disapproval  on  the 
faces  among  which  my  life  is  cast.  Looks  of  contempt 
oast  on  other  persons  need  affect  me  in  no  such  peculiar 
way.  My  spiritual  powers,  again,  must  interest  me  more 
than  those  of  other  people,  and  for  the  same  reason.  I 
sbnuljd  not  be  here  at  all  unless  I  had  cultivated  them  and 
kf-pt  them  from  decay.  And  the  same  law  which  made 
me  once  care  for  them  makes  me  care  for  them  still. 

All  these  three  things,  form  the  natural  Me.  But  all 
these  things  are  objects,  properly  so  called,  to  the  thought 
which  at  any  time  may  be  doing  the  thinking;  and  if  the 
zoological  and  evolutionary  point  of  view  is  the  true  one, 
ihere  is  no  reason  why  one  object  might  not  arouse  passion 
and  interest  as  primitively  and  instinctively  as  any  other, 
The  phenomenon  of  passion  is  in  origin  and  essence  the 
same,  whatever  be  the  target  upon  which  it  is  discharged; 
and  what  the  target  actually  happens  to  be  is  solely  a 
question  of  fact.  I  might  conceivably  be  as  much  fas- 
ciuai^d,  and  as  primitively  so,  by  the  care  of  my  neigh- 
bor^ body  as  by  the  care  of  my  own.     I  am  thus  fascinated 


TEE  SELF. 


195 


by  the  care  of  my  child's  body.  The  only  check  to  such 
exuberant  non-egoistic  interests  is  natural  selection,  which 
would  weed  out  such  as  were  very  harmful  to  the  individ- 
ual or  to  his  tribe.  Many  such  interests,  however,  remain 
unweeded  out — the  interest  in  the  opposite  sex,  for  ex- 
ample, which  seems  in  mankind  stronger  than  is  called  for 
by  its  utilitarian  need;  and  alongside  of  them  remain 
interests,  like  that  in  alcoholic  intoxication,  or  in  musical 
sounds,  which,  for  aught  we  can  see,  are  without  any 
utility  whatever.  The  sympathetic  instincts  and  the 
egoistic  ones  are  thus  coordinate.  They  arise,  so  far  as 
we  can  tell,  on  the  same  psychologic  level.  The  only 
difference  between  them  is  that  the  instincts  called 
egoistic  form  much  the  larger  mass. 

Summary. — The  following  table  may  serve  for  a  sum- 
mary of  what  has  been  said  thus  far.  The  empirical  life 
of  Self  is  divided,  as  below,  into 


Material 

Social. 

Spiritual. 

Selp- 
Seekixg. 

Bodilr    Appetites 
and  Instincts 

Love    of    Adorn- 
ment,  Foppery, 
Acquisitiveness, 
Constructive- 
ness. 

Love  of  Home,  eta 

Desire  to   Please, 
be  Noticed,  Ad- 
mired, etc. 

Sociability,    Emu- 
lation,   Envy, 
Love,      Pursuit 
of  Honor,  Ambi- 
tion, etc. 

Intellectual,  Moral 
and      Religious 
Aspirations, 
Conscientious- 
ness. 

SeLF- 

EsTlMATIOJi. 

Personal    Vanity, 
Modesty,  etc 

Pride  of  Wealth, 
Pear  of  Poverty. 

Social  and  Family 
Pride,   Vain- 
glory,   Snob- 
bery, Humility, 
Shame,  etc. 

Sense  of  Moral  or 
Mental  Superior 
ity,  Purity,  etc, 

Sense  of  Inferior 
ity  or  of  Guilt. 

B)  The  Self  A9  Knower. 


+& 


The  I,  or  'pure  ego/  is  a  very  much  more  difficult  sub- 
ject of  inquiry  than  the  Me.  It  is  that  which  at  any 
given  moment  is  conscious,  whereas  the  Me  is  only  one  of 
the  things  which  it  is  conscious  of.    In  other  words,  it  is 


L96  PSYCHOLOGY. 

the  Thinker;  and  the  question  immediately  conies  up. 
what  is  the  thinker?  Is  it  the  passing  slate  of  conscious- 
ness itself,  or  is  it  something  deeper  and  less  mutable? 
The  passing  state  we  have  seen  to  be  the  very  embodiment 
of  change  (see  p.  155  ff.).  Yet  each  of  us  spontaneously 
considers  that  by  '  1/  he  means  something  always  the  same. 
This  has  led  most  philosophers  to  postulate  behind  the 
passing  state  of  consciousness  a  permanent  Substance  or 
Agent  whose  modification  or  act  it  is.  This  Agent  is  the 
thinker;  the  'state'  is  only  its  instrument  or  means. 
'  Soul,"  transcendental  Ego/  'Spirit,' are  so  many  names 
for  this  more  permanent  sort  of  Thinker.  Not  discrimi- 
nating them  just  yet,  let  us  proceed  to  define  our  idea  of 
the  passing  state  of  consciousness  more  clearly. 

The  Unity  of  the  Passing  Thought. — Already,  in  speak- 
ing of 'sensations/ from  the  point  of  view  of  Fechner's 
idea  of  measuring  them,  we  saw  that  there  was  no  ground 
for  calling  them  compounds.  But  what  is  true  of  sensa- 
tions cognizing  simple  qualities  is  also  true  of  thoughts 
with  complex  objects  composed  of  many  parts.  This 
proposition  unfortunately  runs  counter  to  a  wide-spread 
prejudice,  and  will  have  to  be  defended  at  some  length. 
Common-sense,  and  psychologists  of  almost  every  school, 
have  agreed  that  whenever  an  object  of  thought  contains 
many  elements,  the  thought  itself  must  be  made  up  of  just 
as  many  ideas,  one  id?n  for  each  element,  all  fused  together 
in  appearance,  but  really  separate. 

"There  can  be  no  difficulty  in  admitting  that  association 
does  form  the  ideas  of  an  indefinite  number  of  individuals 
intovone  complex  idea,"  says  James  Mill,  "because  it  is  an 
acknowledged  fact.  Have  we  not  the  idea  of  an  army  ? 
And  is  not  that  precisely  the  ideas  of  an  indefinite:  num- 
ber of  men  formed  into  one  idea  ?" 

Similar  quotations  might  be  multiplied,  and  the  reader's 
own  first  impressions  probably  would  rally  to  their  sup- 
port. Suppose,  for  example,  he  thinks  that  "  the  pac1*:  of 
cards  is  on  the  table."     If  he  begins  to  reflect,  he  is  as 


THE  SELF.  107 

likely  as  not  to  say:  "Well,  isn't  that  a  thought  of  the 
pack  of  cards  ?  Isn't  it  of  the  cards  as  included  in  the 
pack  ?  Isn't  it  of  the  table  ?  And  of  the  legs  of  the  table 
as  well  ?  Hasn't  my  thought,  then,  all  these  parts — one 
part  for  the  pack  and  another  for  the  table  ?  And  within 
the  pack-part  a  part  for  each  card,  as  within  the  table-part 
a  part  for  eacl:  leg?  And  isn't  each  of  these  parts  an 
idea?  And  can  thought,  then,  be  anything  but  an  assem- 
blage or  pack  of  ideas,  each  answering  to  some  element  of 
what  it  knows  ?" 

Plausible  as  such  considerations  may  seem,  it  is  aston- 
ishing how  little  force  they  have.  In  assuming  a  pack  of 
ideas,  each  cognizant  of  some  one  element  of  the  fact  one 
has  assumed,  nothing  has  been  assumed  which  knows  the 
whole  fact  at  once.     The  idea  which,  on  the  hypothesis 

the  pack  of  ideas,  knows,  e.g.,  the  ace  of  spades  must  be 
ignorant  of  the  leg  of  the  table,  since  to  account  for  that 
knowledge  another  special  idea  is  by  the  same  hypothesis 
invoked;  and  so  on  with  the  rest  of  the  ideas,  ail  equally 
ignorant  of  each  other's  objects.  And  yet  in  the  actual 
living  human  mind  what  knows  the  cards  also  knows  the 
table,  its  legs,  etc.,  for  all  these  things  are  known  in  rela- 
tion to  each  other  and  at  once.  Our  notion  of  the  abstract 
numbers  eight,  four,  two  is  as  truly  one  feeling  of  the 
mind  as  our  notion  of  simple  unity.  Our  idea  of  a  couple 
is  not  a  couple  of  ideas.  "But,"  the  reader  may  say,  "is 
not  the  taste  of  lemonade  composed  of  that  of  lemon  plus 
that  of  sugar  ?"  No!  I  reply,  this  is  taking  the  combining 
of  objects  for  that  of  feelings  The  physical  lemonade 
contains  both  the  lemon  and  the  sugar,  but  its  taste  does 
not  contain  their  tastes;  for  if  there  are  any  two  things 
which  are  certainly  not  present  in  the  taste  of  lemonade, 
those  are  the  pure  lemon-sour  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
pure  sugar-sweet  on  the  other.  These  tastes  are  absent 
utterly.  A  taste  somewhat  like  both  of  them  is  there,  but 
that  is  a  distinct  state  of  mind  altogether. 

Distinct  mental  states  cannot  '  fuse/    But  not  only  is 


198  PSYCHOLOGY. 

the  notion  that  our  ideas  are  combinations  of  smaller  ideas 
improbable,  it  is  logically  unintelligible;  it  leaves  out  the 
essential  features  of  all  the  'combinations'  which  we 
actually  know. 

All  the  Combinations'  ivhich  we  actually  know  are 
effects,  wrought  by  the  units  said  to  be  'combined/  upon 

SOME    ENTITY    OTHER    THAN    THEMSELVES.      Without    this 

feature  of  a  medium  or  vehicle,  the  notion  of  combination 
has  no  sense. 

In  other  words,  no  possible  number  of  entities  (call 
them  as  you  like,  whether  forces,  material  particles,  or 
mental  elements)  can  sum  themselves  together.  Each 
remains,  in  the  sum,  what  it  always  was;  and  the  sum 
itself  exists  only  for  a  bystander  who  happens  to  overlook 
the  units  and  to  apprehend  the  sum  as  such;  or  else  it 
exists  in  the  shape  of  some  other  effect  on  an  entity  exter- 
nal to  the  sum  itself.  When  H,  and  0  are  said,  to 
combine  into  '  water/  and  thenceforward  to  exhibit  new 
properties,  the  'water'  is  just  the  old  atoms  in  the  new 
position,  H-O-I I ;  the  '  new  properties '  are  just  their  com- 
bined effects,  when  in  this  position,  upon  external  media, 
such  as  our  sense-organs  and  the  various  reagents  on  which 
water  may  exert  its  properties  and  be  known.  Just  so,  the 
strength  of  many  men  may  combine  when  they  pull  upon 
one  rope,  of  many  muscular  fibres  when  they  pull  upon  one 
tendon. 

In  the  parallelogram  of  forces,  the  '  forces '  do  not  com* 
bine  themselves  into  the  diagonal  resultant;  a  body  is 
needed  on  which  they  may  impinge,  to  exhibit  their  re- 
sultant effect.  No  more  do  musical  sounds  combine  per  se 
into  concords  or  discords.  Concord  and  discord  are  names 
for  their  combined  effects  on  that  external  medium,  the 
ear. 

Where  the  elemental  units  are  supposed  to.be  feelings, 
the  case  is  in  no  wise  altered.  Take  a  hundred  of  them, 
shuffle  them  and  pack  them  as  close  together  as  you  can 
(whatever  that  may  mean);  still  each  remains  the  aame 


"  THE  SELF.  199 

feeling  it  always  was,  shut  in  its  own  skin,  windowless, 
ignorant  of  what  the  other  feelings  are  and  mean.  There 
would  be  a  hundred-and-first  feeling  there,  if,  when  a  group 
01  series  of  such  feelings  were  set  up,  a  consciousness  be- 
longing to  the  group  as  such  should  emerge,  and  this  one 
hundred  and  first  feeling  would  be  a  totally  new  fact.  The 
one  hundred  original  feelings  might,  by  a  curious  physical 
.aw,  be  a  signal  for  its  creation,  when  they  came  together— 
we  often  have  to  learn  things  separately  before  we  know 
them  as  a  sum — but  they  would  have  no  substantial  iden- 
tity with  the  new  feeling,  nor  it  with  them ;  and  one  could 
never  deduce  the  one  from  the  others,  or  (in  any  intelli- 
gible sense)  say  that  they  evolved  it  out  of  themselves. 

Take  a  sentence  of  a  dozen  words,  and  take  twelve  men 
and  tell  to  each  one  word.  Then  stand  the  men  in  a  row 
or  jam  them  in  a  bunch,  and  let  each  think  of  his  word  as 
tntently  as  he  will:  nowhere  will  there  be  a  consciousness 
of  the  whole  sentence.  We  talk,  it  is  true,  of  the  '  spirit  of 
the  age/  and  the  s  sentiment  of  the  people,'  and  in  various 
ways  we  hypostatize  'public  opinion.'  But  we  know  this 
to  be  symbolic  speech,  and  never  dream  that  the  spirit, 
opinion,  or  sentiment  constitutes  a  consciousness  other 
than,  and  additional  to,  that  of  the  several  individuals 
whom  the  words  'age,'  'people/  or  'public'  denote.  The 
private  minds  do  not  agglomerate  into  a  higher  compound 
mind.  This  has  always  been  the  invincible  contention  of 
the  spiritualists  against  the  associationists  in  Psychology. 
The  associationists  say  the  mind  is  constituted  by  a  multi- 
plicity of  distinct  'ideas'  associated  into  a  unity.  There 
is,  they  say,  an  idea  of  a,  and  also  an  idea  of  b.  Therefore, 
ihey  say,  there  is  an  idea  of  a  +  b,  or  of  a  and  b  together. 
Which  is  like  saying  that  the  mathematical  square  of 
a  plus  that  of  b  is  equal  to  the  square  of  a  -f-  b,  a  palpable 
dntruth.  Idea  of  a  -f-  idea  of  b  is  not  identical  with  idea 
of  (a  +  b).  It  is  one,  they  are  two;  in  it,  what  knows  a 
also  knows  6;  in  them,  what  knows  a  is  expressly  posited 
as  not  knowing  b'}  etc.     In  short,  the  two  separate  idea§ 


200  PSYCHOLOGY. 

can  never  by  any  logic  be  made  to  figure  as  one  idea.  If 
one  idea  (of  a -\-  b,  for  example)  come  as  a  matter  of  fact 
after  tbe  two  separate  ideas  (of  a  and  of  b),  then  we  must 
hold  it  to  be  as  direct  a  product  of  the  later  conditions  as 
the  two  separate  ideas  were  of  the  earlier  conditions. 

The  simplest  thing,  therefore,  if  we  are  to  assume  the  ex- 
istence of  a  stream  of  consciousness  at  all,  would  be  to  suj>- 
pose  that  things  that  arc  known  together  arc  known  in 
single  pulses  of  that  stream.  The  things  may  be  many, 
and  may  occasion  many  currents  in  the  brain.  But  the 
psychic  phenomenon  correlative  to  these,  many  currents  is 
one  integral '  state/  transitive  or  substantive  (see  p.  161),  to 
which  the  many  things  appear. 

The  Soul  as  a  Combining  Medium.— The  spiritualists  in 
philosophy  have  been  prompt  to  see  that  things  which  arc 
known  together  are  known  by  one  something ,but  thai  some- 
thing, they  say,  is  no  mere  passing  thought,  but  a  simple 
and  permanent  spiritual  being  on  which  many  ideas  com- 
bine their  effects.  It  makes  no  difference  in  this  connec- 
tion whether  this  being  be  called  Soul,  Ego,  or  Spirit,  in 
either  case  its  chief  function  is  that  of  a  combining 
medium.  This  is  a  different  vehicle  of  knowledge  from 
that  in  which  we  just  said  that  the  mystery  of  knowing 
things  together  might  be  most  simply  lodged.  Which  is 
the  real  knower,  this  permanent  being,  or  our  passing 
state  ?  If  we  had  other  grounds,  not  yet  considered,  for 
admitting  the  Scul  into  our  psychology,  then  getting 
there  on  those  grounds,  she  might  turn  out  to  be  the 
knower  too.  But  if  there  be  no  other  grounds  for  admit- 
ting the  Soul,  we  had  better  cling  to  our  passing  'states' 
as  the  exclusive  agents  of  knowledge;  for  we  have  to  as- 
sume their  existence  anyhow  in  psychology,  and  the  know- 
ing of  many  things  together  is  just  as  well  accounted  for 
when  we  call  it  one  of  their  functions  as  when  we  call  it  a 
reaction  of  the  Soul.  Explained  it  is  not  by  either  con- 
ception, and  has  to  figure  in  psychology  as  a  datum  that  is 
D.ltimate. 


THE  8EL1.  201 

But  there  are  other  alleged  grounds  for  admitting  the 
Soul  into  psychology,  and  the  chief  of  them  is 

The  Sense  of  Personal  Identity. — In  the  last  chapter  it 
was  stated  (see  p.  154)  that  the  thoughts  which  we  actually 
know  to  exist  do  not  fly  about  loose,  but  seem  each  to 
belong  to  some  one  thinker  and  not  to  another.  Each 
thought,  out  of  a  multitude  of  other  thoughts  of  which 
it  may  think,  is  able  to  distinguish  those  which  belong  to 
it.  from  those  which  do  not.  The  former  have  a  warmth 
and  intimacy  about  them  of  which  the  latter  are  com- 
pletely devoid,  and  the  result  is  a  Me  of  yesterday,  judged 
to  be  in  some  peculiarly  subtle  sense  the  same  with  the 
1  who  now  make  the  judgment.  As  a  mere  subjective 
phenomenon  the  judgment  presents  no  special  mystery. 
It  belongs  to  the  great  class  of  judgments  of  sameness; 
and  there  is  nothing  more  remarkable  in  making  a  judg- 
ment of  sameness  in  the  first  person  than  in  the  second  or 
the  third.  The  intellectual  operations  seem  essentially 
alike,  whether  I  say  '  I  am  the  same  as  I  was,''  or  whether 
I  say  'the  pen  is  the  same  as  it  was,  yesterday.'  It  is  as 
easy  to  think  this  as  to  think  the  opposite  and  say  '  neither 
of  us  is  the  same/  The  only  question  which  we  have  to 
consider  is  whether  it  be  a  right  judgment.  Is  the  same- 
ness predicated  really  there? 

Sameness  in  the  Self  as  Known. — If  in  the  sentence  "I 
am  the  same  that  I  was  yesterday,"  we  take  the  '  I '  broadly, 
it  is  evident  that  in  many  ways  I  am  not  the  same.  As  a 
concrete  Me,  I  am  somewhat  different  from  wbat  I  was: 
then  hungry,  now  full;  then  walking,  now  at  rest;  then 
poorer,  now  richer;  then  younger,  now  older;  etc.  And 
yet  in  other  ways  I  am  the  same,  and  we  may  call  these 
the  essential  wrays.  My  name  and  profession  and  rela- 
tions to  the  world  are  identical,  my  face,  my  faculties  and 
store  of  memories,  are  practically  indistinguishable,  now  and 
then.  Moreover  the  Me  of  now  and  the  Me  of  then  are  con- 
tinuous :  the  alterations  were  gradual  and  never  affected  the 
whole  of  me  at  pnce.    So  far,  then,  my  personal  identity  is 


202  PSYCHOLOGY. 

just  like  the  sameness  predicated  of  any  other  aggregate 
thing.  It  is  a  conclusion  grounded  either  on  the  resem- 
blance in  essential  respects,  or  on  the  continuity  of  the 
phenomena  compared.  And  it  must  not  be  taken  to  mean 
more  than  these  grounds  warrant,  or  treated  as  a  sort  of 
metaphysical  or  absolute  Unity  in  which  all  differences  are 
overwhelmed.  The  past  and  present  selves  compared  are 
the  same  just  so  far  as  they  are  the  same,  and  no  farther. 
They  are  the  same  in  kind.  But  this  generic  sameness 
coexists  with  generic  differences  just  as  real;  and  if  from 
the  one  point  of  view  I  am  one  self,  from  another  I  am 
quite  as  truly  many.  Similarly  of  the  attribute  of  con- 
tinuity: it  gives  to  the  self  the  unity  of  mere  connected- 
ness, or  unbrokenness,  a  perfectly  definite  phenomenal 
thing — but  it  gives  not  a  jot  or  tittle  more. 

Sameness  in  the  Self  as  Knower. — But  all  this  is  said 
only  of  the  Me,  or  Self  as  known.  In  the  judgment  '  I 
am  the  same,'  etc.,  the  'I'  was  taken  broadly  as  the  con- 
crete person.  Suppose,  however,  that  we  take  it  narrowly, 
as  the  Thinker,  as  'that  la  which9  all  the  concrete  deter- 
minations of  the  Me  belong  and  are  known:  does  there  not 
then  appear  an  absolute  identity  at  different  times?  That 
something  which  at  every  moment  goes  out  and  knowingly 
appropriates  the  Me  of  the  past,  and  discards  the  non-me 
as  foreign,  is  it  not  a  permanent  abiding  principle  of  spir- 
itual activity  identical  with  itself  wherever  found  ? 

That  it  is  such  a  principle  is  the  reigning  doctrine  both 
of  philosophy  and  common-sense,  and  yet  reflection  finds 
it  difficult  to  justify  the  idea.  If  there  were  no  passing 
states  of  consciousness,  then  indeed  we  might  suppose  an 
abiding  principle,  absolutely  one  with  itself,  to  be  the 
ceaseless  thinker  in  each  one  of  us.  But  if  the  states  of 
consciousness  be  accorded  as  realities,  no  such  '  substantial ' 
identity  in  the  thinker  need  be  supposed.  Yesterday's  and 
to-day's  states  of  consciousnesses  have  no  substantial 
identity,  for  when  one  is  here  the  other  is  irrevocably  dead 
and  gone.    But  they  have  afunctional  identity,  for  both 


THE  SELF.  203 

know  the  same  objects,  and  so  far  as  the  by-gone  me  L«  one 
of  those  objects,  they  react  upon  it  in  an  identical  way? 
greeting  it  and  calling  it  mine,  and  opposing  it  to  all  the 
other  things  they  know.  This  functional  identity  seems 
really  the  only  sort  of  identity  in  the  thinker  which  the 
facts  require  us  to  suppose.  Successive  thinkers,  numeri- 
cally distinct,  but  all  aware  of  the  same  past  in  the  same 
way,  form  an  adequate  vehicle  for  all  the  experience  of 
personal  unity  and  sameness  which  we  actually  have.  And 
just  such  a  train  of  successive  thinkers  is  the  stream  of 
mental  states  (each  with  its  complex  object  cognized  and 
emotional  and  selective  reaction  thereupon)  which  psycholo- 
gy treated  as  a  natural  science  has  to  assume  (see  p.  2). 

The  logical  conclusion  seems  then  to  be  that  the  states 
of  consciousness  are  all  that  psychology  needs  to  do  her 
work  with.  Metaphysics  or  theology  may  prove  the  Soul  to 
exist;  but  for  psychology  the  hypothesis  of  such  a  substan- 
tial principle  of  unity  is  superfluous. 

How  the  I  appropriates  the  Me.— But  why  should  each 
successive  mental  state  appropriate  the  same  past  Me  ?  I 
spoke  a  while  ago  of  my  own  past  experiences  appearing  to 
me  with  a  '  warmth  and  intimacy '  which  the  experiences 
thought  of  by  me  as  having  occurred  to  other  people  lack. 
This  leads  us  to  the  answer  sought.  My  present  Me  is  felt 
with  warmth  and  intimacy.  The  heavy  warm  mass  of  my 
body  is  there,  and  the  nucleus  of  the  'spiritual  me,'  the  sense 
of  intimate  activity  (p.  184),  is  there.  -We  cannot  realize  our 
present  self  without  simultaneously  feeling  one  or  other  of 
these  two  things.  Any  other  object  of  thought  which 
brings  these  two  things  with  it  into  consciousness  will  be 
thought  with  a  warmth  and  an  intimacy  like  those  which 
cling  to  the  present  me. 

Any  distant  object  which  fulfils  this  condition  will  be 
thought  with  such  warmth  and  intimacy.  But  which  dis- 
tant objects  do  fulfil  the  condition,  when  represented  ? 

Obviously  those,  and  only  those,  which  fulfilled  it  when 
they  were  alive.     Them  we  shall  still  represent  with  the 


204  PSYCHOLOGY. 

animal  warmth  upon  them;  to  them  may  possibly  still  cling 
the  flavor  of  the  inner  activity  taken  in  the  act.  And  by  a 
natural  consequence,  we  shall  assimilate  them  to  each  other 
and  to  the  warm  and  intimate  self  we  now  feel  within  us 
as  we  think,  and  separate  them  as  a  collection  from  what- 
ever objects  have  not  this  mark,  much  as  out  of  a  herd 
of  cattle  let  loose  for  the  winter  on  some  wide  Western 
prairie  the  owner  picks  out  and  sorts  together,  when  the 
n>und-up  comes  in  the  spring,  all  the  beasts  on  which  he 
finds  his  own  particular  brand.  Well,  just  such  objects  are 
the  past  experiences  which  f  now  call  mine.  Other  men's 
experiences,  no  matter  how  much  I  may  know  about  them, 
never  bear  this  vivid,  this  peculiar  brand.  This  is  why  Peter, 
awakening  in  the  same  bed  with  Paul,  and  recalling  what 
both  had  in  mind  before  they  went  to  sleep,  reidentifies 
and  appropriates  the  'warm'  ideas  as  his,  and  is  never 
tempted  to  confuse  them  with  those  cold  and  pale-appear- 
ing ones  which  he  ascribes  to  Paul.  As  well  might  he 
confound  Paul's  body,  which  he  only  sees,  with  his  own 
body,  which  he  sees  but  also  feels.  Each  of  us  when  he 
awakens  says,  Here's  the  same  old  Me  again,  just  as  he 
says,  Here's  the  same  old  bed,  the  same  old  room,  the  same 
old  world. 

And  similarly  in  our  waking  hours,  though  each  pulse  of 
consciousness  dies  away  and  is  replaced  by  another,  yet  that 
other,  among  the  things  it  knows,  knows  its  own  prede- 
cessor, and  finding  it  'warm,'  in  the  way  we  have  de- 
scribed, greets  it,  saying:  "Thou  art  mine,  and  part  of  the 
same  self  with  me."  Each  later  thought,  knowing  and 
including  thus  the  thoughts  that  went  before,  is  the  final 
receptacle — and  appropriating  them  is  the  final  owner — of 
all  that  they  contain  and  own.  As  Kant  says,  it  is  as  if 
elastic  balls  were  to  have  not  only  motion  but  knowledge 
of  it,  and  a  first  ball  were  to  transmP  both  its  motion  and 
its  consciousness  to  a  second,  which  took  both  up  into  its 
consciousness  and  passed  them  to  a  third,  until  the  last 
ball  held  all  that  the  other  balls  had  held,  and  realized  it 


TUB  SELF.  20f) 

as  its  own.  It  is  this  trick  which  the  nascent  thought 
has  of  immediately  taking  up  the  expiring  thought  and 
'  adopting '  it,  which  leads  to  the  appropriation  of  most  of 
the  remoter  constituents  of  the  self.  Who  owns  the  last 
self  owns  the  self  before  the  last,  for  what  possesses  the  pos- 
sessor possesses  the  possessed.  It  is  impossible  to  discover 
any  verifiable  features  in  personal  identity  which  this 
sketch  does  not  contain,  impossible  to  imagine  how  any 
transcendent  principle  of  Unity  (were  such  a  principle 
there)  could  shape  matters  to  any  other  result,  or  be 
known  by  any  other  fruit,  than  just  this  production  of  a 
stream  of  consciousness  each  successive  part  of  which 
should  know,  and  knowing,  hug  to  itself  and  adopt,  all 
those  that  went  before, — thus  standing  as  the  representa- 
tive of  an  entire  past  stream  with  which  it  is  in  no  wise 
to  be  identified. 

Mutations  and  Multiplications  of  the  Self. — The  Me,  like 
every  other  aggregate,  changes  as  it  grows.  The  passing 
states  of  consciousness,  which  should  preserve  in  their  suc- 
cession an  identical  knowledge  of  its  past,  wander  from 
their  duty,  letting  large  portions  drop  from  out  of  their 
ken,  and  representing  other  portions  wrong.  The  identity 
which  we  recognize  as  we  survey  the  long  procession  can 
only  be  the  relative  identity  of  a  slow  shifting  in  which 
there  is  always  some  common  ingredient  retained.  The 
commonest  element  of  all,  the  most  uniform,  is  the  posses- 
sion of  some  common  memories.  However  different  the 
man  may  be  from  the  youth,  both  look  back  on  the  same 
childhood  and  call  it  their  own. 

Thus  the  identity  found  by  the  /in  its  Me  is  only  a 
loosely  construed  thing-  ?,:i  identity  '  on  the  whole,'  just 
like  that  which  any  outside  observer  might  find  in  the 
same  assemblage  of  facts.  We  often  say  of  a  man  '  he  is  so 
changed  one  would  not  know  him';  and  so  does  a  man, 
less  often,  speak  of  himself.  These  changes  in  the  Me, 
recognized  by  the  I,  or  by  outside  observers,  may  be  grave 
or  slight.     They  deserve  some  notice  here. 


206  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  mutations  of  the  Self  may  be  divided  into  two  main 
classes : 

a.  Alterations  of  memory ;  and 

b.  Alterations  in  the  present  bodily  and  spiritual  selves. 

a.  Of  the  alterations  of  memory  little  need  be  said— 
they  are  so  familiar.  Losses  of  memory  are  a  normal  inci- 
dent in  life,  especially  in  advancing  years,  and  the  person's 
me,  as  'realized/  shrinks  pari  passu  with  the  facts  that 
disappear.  The  memory  of  dreams  and  of  experiences  in 
the  hypnotic  trance  rarely  survives. 

False  memories,  also,  are  by  no  means  rare  occurrences, 
and  whenever  they  occur  they  distort  our  consciousness  of 
our  Me.  Most  people,  probably,  are  in  doubt  about  certain 
matters  ascribed  to  their  past.  They  may  have  seen  them, 
may  have  said  them,  done  them,  or  they  may  only  have 
dreamed  or  imagined  they  did  so.  The  content  of  a  dream 
will  oftentimes  insert  itself  into  the  stream  of  real  life  in  a 
most  perplexing  way.  The  most  frequent  source  of  false 
memory  is  the  accounts  we  give  to  others  of  our  experi- 
ences. Such  accounts  we  almost  always  make  both  more 
simple  and  more  interesting  than  the  truth.  We  quote 
what  we  should  have  said  or  done,  rather  than  what  we 
really  said  or  did;  and  in  the  first  telling  we  may  be  fully 
aware  of  the  distinction.  But  ere  long  the  fiction  expels 
the  reality  from  memory  and  reigns  in  its  stead  alone. 
This  is  one  great  source  of  the  fallibility  of  testimony 
meant  to  be  quite  honest.  Especially  where  the  marvellous 
is  concerned,  the  story  takes  a  tilt  that  way,  and  the  mem- 
ory follows  the  story. 

b.  "When  we  pass  beyond  alterations  of  memory  to  ab- 
normal alterations  in  the  present  self  we  have  graver  dis- 
turbances. These  alterations  are  of  three  main  types,  but 
our  knowledge  of  the  elements  and  causes  of  these  changes 
of  personality  is  so  slight  that  the  division  into  types  must 
not  be  regarded  as  having  any  profound  significance.  The 
types  are: 


THE  SELF.  207 

a.  Insane  delusions; 

/?.  Alternating  selves; 

y.  Mediumships  or  possessions. 

a.  In  insanity  we  often  have  delusions  projected  into 
che  past,  which  are  melancholic  or  sanguine  according  to 
the  character  of  the  disease.  But  the  worst  alterations  of 
the  self  come  from  present  perversions  of  sensibility  and 
impulse  which  leave  the  past  undisturbed,  but  induce  the 
patient  to  think  that  the  present  Me  is  an  altogether  new 
personage.  Something  of  this  sort  happens  normally  in 
the  rapid  expansion  of  the  whole  character,  intellectual 
as  well  as  volitional,  which  takes  place  after  the  time  of 
puberty.  The  pathological  cases  are  curious  enough  to 
merit  longer  notice. 

The  basis  of  our  personality,  as  M.  Eibot  says,  is  that 
feeling  of  our  vitality  which,  because  it  is  so  perpetually 
present,  remains  in  the  background  of  our  consciousness. 

"  It  is  the  basis  because,  always  present,  always  acting, 
without  peace  or  rest,  it  knows  neither  sleep  nor  fainting, 
and  lasts  as  long  as  life  itself,  of  which  it  is  one  form.  It 
serves  as  a  support  to  that  self-conscious  me  which  memory 
constitutes,  it  is  the  medium  of  association  among  its  othei 
parts.  .  .  .  Suppose  now  that  it  were  possible  at  once  to 
change  our  body  and  put  another  into  its  place:  skeleton, 
vessels,  viscera,  muscles,  skin,  everything  made  new,  except 
the  nervous  system  with  its  stored-up  memory  of  the  past. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  such  a  case  the  afflux  of 
unaccustomed  vital  sensations  would  produce  the  gravest 
disorders.  Between  the  old  sense  of  existence  engraved  on 
the  nervous  system,  and  the  new  one  acting  with  all  the 
intensity  of  its  reality  and  novelty,  there  would  be  irrecon- 
cilable contradiction." 

What  the  particular  perversions  of  the  bodily  sensibility 
may  be  which  give  rise  to  these  contradictions  is,  for  the 
most  part,  impossible  for  a  sound-minded  person  to  con- 


208  PSYCHOLOGY. 

ceive.  One  patient  has  another  self  that  repeats  all  his 
thoughts  for  him.  Others,  amongst  whom  are  some  of  the 
first  characters  in  history,  have  internal  (heinous  who  speak 
with  them  and  are  replied  to.  Another  feels  that  someone 
'makes' his  thoughts  for  him.  Another  has  two  bodies, 
lying  in  different  beds.  Some  patients  feel  as  if  they  had 
lost  parts  of  their  bodies,  teeth,  brain,  stomach,  etc.  In 
some  it  is  made  of  wood,  glass,  bntter,  etc.  In  some  it 
does  not  exist  any  longer,  or  is  dead,  or  is  a  foreign  object 
quite  separate  from  the  speaker's  self.  Occasionally,  parts 
of  the  body  lose  their  connection  for  consciousness  with 
the  rest,  and  are  treated  as  belonging  to  another  person 
and  moved  by  a  hostile  will.  Thus  the  right  hand  may 
fight  with  the  left  as  with  an  enemy.  Or  the  cries  of  the 
patient  himself  are  assigned  to  another  person  with  whom 
the  patient  expresses  sympathy.  The  literature  of  insan- 
ity is  filled  with  narratives  of  such  illusions  as  these.  M. 
Taine  quotes  from  a  patient  of  Dr.  Krishaber  an  account 
of  sufferings,  from  which  it  will  be  seen  how  completely 
aloof  from  what  is  normal  a  man's  experience  may  sud- 
denly become: 

"  After  the  first  or  second  day  it  was  for  some  weeks 
impossible  to  observe  or  analyze  myself.  The  suffering — 
angina  pectoris — was  too  overwhelming.  It  was  not  till 
the  first  days  of  January  that  I  could  give  an  account  to 
myself  of  what  I  experienced.  .  .  .  Here  is  the  first  thing 
of  which  I  retain  a  clear  remembrance.  I  was  alone,  and 
already  a  prey  to  permanent  visual  trouble,  when  I  was 
suddenly  seized  with  a  visual  trouble  infinitely  more  pro- 
nounced. Objects  grew  small  and  receded  to  infinite  dis- 
tances— men  and  things  together.  I  was  myself  immeas- 
urably far  away.  I  looked  about  me  with  terror  and 
astonishment;  the  world  was  escaping  from  me.  ...  1 
remarked  at  the  same  time  that  my  voice  was  extremely 
far  away  from  me,  that  it  sounded  no  longer  as  if  mine.  I 
struck  the  ground  with  my  foot,  and  perceived  its  resist- 
ance;  but  this  resistance  seemed  illusory — not  that  the 


THE  SELF.  209 

soil  was  soft,  but  that  the  weight  of  my  body  was  reduced 
to  almost  nothing.  ...  I  had  the  feeling  of  being  without 
weight.  .  .  ."  In  addition  to  being  so  distant,  "  objects 
appeared  to  me  fiat.  When  I  spoke  with  anyone,  I  saw 
him  like  an  image  cut  out  of  paper  with  no  relief.  .  .  . 
This  sensation  lasted  intermittently  for  two  years.  .  .  , 
Constantly  it  seemed  as  if  my  legs  did  not  belong  to  me. 
It  was  almost  as  bad  with  my  arms.  As  for  my  head,  it 
seemed  no  longer  to  exist.  ...  I  appeared  to  myself  to 
act  automatically,  by  an  impulsion  foreign  to  myself.  .  .  . 
There  was  inside  of  me  a  new  being,  and  another  part  of 
myself,  the  old  being,  which  took  no  interest  in  the  new- 
comer. I  distinctly  remember  saying  to  myself  that  the 
sufferings  of  this  new  being  were  to  me  indifferent.  I  was 
never  really  dupe  of  these  illusions,  but  my  mind  grew 
often  tired  of  incessantly  correcting  the  new  impressions, 
and  I  let  myself  go  and  live  the  unhappy  life  of  this  new 
entity.  I  had  an  ardent  desire  to  see  my  old  world  again, 
to  get  back  to  my  old  self.  This  desire  kept  me  from 
killing  myself.  ...  I  was  another,  and  I  hated,  I  despised 
this  other;  he  was  perfectly  odious  to  me;  it  was  certainly 
another  who  had  taken  my  form  and  assumed  my  func- 
tions." * 

In  cases  like  this,  it  is  as  certain  that  the  /  is  unaltered 
as  that  the  Me  is  changed.  That  is  to  say,  the  present 
Thought  of  the  patient  is  cognitive  of  both  the  old  Me  and 
the  new,  so  long  as  its  memory  holds  good.  Only,  within 
that  objective  sphere  which  formerly  lent  itself  so  simply 
to  the  judgment  of  recognition  and  of  egoistic  appropria- 
tion, strange  perplexities  have  arisen.  The  present  and 
the  past,  both  seen  therein,  will  not  unite.  Where  is  my 
old  Me?  What  is  this  new  one?  Are  they  the  same? 
Or  have  I  two  ?  Such  questions,  answered  by  whatever 
theory  the  patient  is  able  to  conjure  up  as  plausible,  form 
the  beginning  of  his  insane  life. 

*  De  l'lntelligence,  3me  edition  (1878),  vol.  n.  p.  461,  note. 


210  PSYCHOLOGY. 

/i.  The  phenomenon  of  alternating  personality  in  its 
simplest  phases  seems  based  on  lapses  of  memory.  Any 
man  becomes,  as  we  say,  inconsistent  with  himself  if  he 
forgets  his  engagements,  pledges,  knowledges,  and  habits; 
and  it  is  merely  a  question  of  degree  at  what  point  we  shall 
say  that  his  personality  is  changed.  But  in  the  pathological 
cases  known  as  those  of  double  or  alternate  personality  the 
loss  of  memory  is  abrupt,  and  is  usually  preceded  by  a 
period  of  unconsciousness  or  syncope  lasting  a  variable 
length  of  time.  Iu  the  hypnotic  trance  we  can  easily  pro- 
duce an  alteration  of  the  personality,  either  by  telling  the 
subject  to  forget  all  that  has  happened  to  him  since  such 
or  such  a  date,  in  which  case  he  becomes  (it  may  be)  a 
child  again,  or  by  telling  him  he  is  another  altogether 
imaginary  personage,  in  which  case  all  facts  about  himself 
seem  for  the  time  being  to  lapse  from  out  his  mind,  and 
he  throws  himself  into  the  new  character  with  a  vivacity 
proportionate  to  the  amount  of  histrionic  imagination 
which  he  possesses.  But  in  the  pathological  cases  the 
transformation  is  spontaneous.  The  most  famous  case, 
Haps,  on  record  is  that  of  Felida  X.,  reported  by  Dr. 
■n  of  Bordeaux.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  this  woman 
.tn  to  pass  into  a  'secondary'  state  characterized  by  a 
„nge  in  her  general  disposition  and  character,  as  if  cer- 
tain 'inhibitions/  previously  existing,  were  suddenly  re» 
moved.  During  the  secondary  state  she  remembered  the 
first  state,  but  on  emerging  from  it  into  the  first  state  she 
remembered  nothing  of  the  second.  At  the  age  of  forty- 
four  the  duration  of  the  secondary  state  (which  was  on  the 
whole  superior  in  quality  to  the  original  state)  had  gained 
upon  the  latter  so  much  as  to  occupy  most  of  her  time. 
During  it  she  remembers  the  events  belonging  to  the 
original  state,  but  her  complete  oblivion  of  the  secondary 
state  when  the  original  state  recurs  is  often  very  distressing 
to  her,  as,  for  example,  when  the  transition  takes  place  in 
a  carriage  on  her  way  to  a  funeral,  and  she  has  no  idea 
which  one  of  her  friends  mav  be  dead.     She  actually  be- 


THE  SELF.  211 

came  pregnant  during  one  of  her  early  secondary  states, 
and  during  her  first  state  had  no  knowledge  of  how  it  had 
come  to  pass.  Her  distress  at  these  blanks  of  memory  is 
sometimes  intense  and  once  drove  her  to  attempt  suicide. 

M.  Pierre  Janet  describes  a  still  more  remarkable  case 
as  follows:  "  Leonie  B.,  whose  life  sounds  more  like  an  im- 
probable romance  than  a  genuine  history,  has  had  attacks 
of  natural  somnambulism  since  the  age  of  three  years. 
She  has  been  hypnotized  constantly  by  all  sorts  of  persons 
from  the  age  of  sixteen  upwards,  and  she  is  now  forty- 
five.  Whilst  her  normal  life  developed  in  one  way  in 
the  midst  of  her  poor  country  surroundings,  her  second 
life  was  passed  in  drawing-rooms  and  doctors'  offices,  and 
naturally  took  an  entirely  different  direction.  To-day, 
when  in  her  normal  state,  this  poor  peasant  woman  is  a 
serious  and  rather  sad  person,  calm  and  slow,  very  mild 
with  every  one,  and  extremely  timid :  to  look  at  her  one 
would  never  suspect  the  personage  which  she  contains. 
But  hardly  is  she  put  to  sleep  hypnotically  when  a  meta- 
morphosis occurs.  Her  face  is  no  longer  the  same.  She 
keeps  her  eyes  closed,  it  is  true,  but  the  acuteness  of  her 
other  senses  supplies  their  place.  She  is  gay,  noisy,  rest- 
less, sometimes  insupportably  so.  She  remains  good- 
natured,  but  has  acquired  a  singular  tendency  to  irony  and 
sharp  jesting.  Nothing  is  more  curious  than  to  hear  her 
after  a  sitting  when  she  has  received  a  visit  from  strangers 
who  wished  to  see  her  asleep.  She  gives  a  word-portrait 
of  them,  apes  their  manners,  claims  to  know  their  little 
ridiculous  aspects  and  passions,  and  for  each  invents  a 
romance.  To  this  character  must  be  added  the  possession 
of  an  enormous  number  of  recollections,  whose  existence 
she  does  not  even  suspect  when  awake,  for  her  amnesia  is 
then  complete.  .  .  .  She  refuses  the  name  of  Leonie  and 
takes  that  of  Leontine  (Leonie  2)  to  which  her  first  mag- 
netizers  had  accustomed  her.  '  That  good  woman  is  not 
myself,'  she  says, « she  is  too  stupid  ! '  To  herself,  Leontine, 
or  Leonie  2,  she  attributes  all  the  sensations  and  all  the 


212  PSYCHOLGOY. 

actions,  in  a  word  all  the  conscious  experiences,  which  she 
lias  undergone  in  somnambulism,  and  knits  them  together 
to  make  the  history  of  her  already  long  life.  To  Leonie  1 
[as  M.  Janet  calls  the  waking  woman],  on  the  other  hand, 
she  exclusively  ascribes  the  events  lived  through  in  waking 
hours.  I  was  at  first  struck  by  an  important  exception  to 
the  rule,  and  was  disposed  to  think  that  there  might  be 
something  arbitrary  in  this  partition  of  her  recollections. 
In  the  normal  state  Leonie  has  a  husband  and  children; 
but  Leonie  2,  the  somnambulist,  whilst  acknowledging  the 
children  as  her  own,  attributes  the  husband  to  '  the  other.' 
This  choice  was  perhaps  explicable,  but  it  followed  no 
rule.  It  was  not  till  later  that  I  learned  that  her  mag- 
netizers  in  early  days,  as  audacious  as  certain  hypnotizcrs 
of  recent  date,  had  somnambulized  her  for  her  first 
accouchement s,  and  that  she  had  lapsed  into  that  state 
spontaneously  in  the  later  ones.  Leonie  2  was  thus  quite 
right  in  ascribing  to  herself  the  children — it  was  she  who 
had  had  them,  and  the  rule  that  her  first  trance-state  forms 
a  different  personality  was  not  broken.  But  it  is  the  same 
with  her  second  or  deepest  state  of  trance.  When  after 
the  renewed  passes,  syncope,  etc.,  she  reaches  the  condition 
which  I  have  called  Leonie  3,  she  is  another  person  still. 
Serious  and  grave,  instead  of  being  a  restless  child,  she 
speaks  slowly  and  moves  but  little.  Again  she  separates 
herself  from  the  waking  Leonie  1.  'A  good  but  rather 
stupid  woman,'  she  says,  'and  not  me.'  And  she  also 
separates  herself  from  Leonie  2:  'How  can  you  see  any- 
thing of  me  in  that  crazy  creature?'  she  says.  'Fortu- 
nately I  am  nothing  for  her.'" 

y.  In  '  medium  ships'  or  'possessions'  the  invasion  and 
the  passing  away  of  the  secondary  state  are  both  relatively 
abrupt,  ind  the  duration  of  the  state  is  usually  short — i.e., 
from  a  few  minutes  to  a  few  hours.  Whenever  the  second- 
ary state  is  well  developed,  no  memory  for  aught  that  hap- 
pened during  it  remains  after  the  primary  consciousness 


THE  SELF.  213 

comes  back.  The  subject  during  the  secondary  conscious- 
ness speaks,  writes,  or  acts  as  if  animated  by  a  foreign 
person,  and  often  names  this  foreign  person  and  gives  his 
history.  In  old  times  the  foreign  '  control '  was  usually  a 
demon,  and  is  so  now  in  communities  which  favor  that 
belief.  With  us  he  gives  himself  out  at  the  worst  for  an 
Indian  or  other  grotesquely  speaking  but  harmless  person- 
age. Usually  he  purports  to  be  the  spirit  of  a  dead  per- 
son known  or  unknown  to  those  present,  and  the  subject 
is  then  what  we  call  a  '  medium.'  Mediumistic  possession 
in  all  its  grades  seems  to  form  a  perfectly  natural  special 
type  of  alternate  personality,  and  the  susceptibility  to  it 
in  some  form  is  by  no  means  an  uncommon  gift,  in  per- 
sons who  have  no  other  obvious  nervous  anomaly.  The 
phenomena  are  very  intricate,  and  are  only  just  begin- 
ning to  be  studied  in  a  proper  scientific  way.  The  lowest 
phase  of  mediumship  is  automatic  writing,  and  the  lowest 
grade  of  that  is  where  the  Subject  knows  what  words 
are  coming,  but  feels  impelled  to  write  them  as  if  from 
without.  Then  comes  writing  unconsciously,  even  whilst 
engaged  in  reading  or  talk.  Inspirational  speaking,  play- 
ing on  musical  instruments,  etc.,  also  belong  to  the  rela- 
tively lower  phases  of  possession,  in  which  the  normal  self 
is  not  excluded  from  conscious  participation  in  the  per- 
formance, though  their  initiative  seems  to  come  from  else- 
where. In  the  highest  phase  the  trance  is  complete,  the 
voice,  language,  and  everything  are  changed,  and  there  is 
no  after-memory  whatever  until  the  next  trance  comes. 
One  curious  thing  about  trance-utterances  is  their  generic 
similarity  in  different  individuals.  The  '  control '  here  in 
America  is  either  a  grotesque,  slangy,  and  flippant  person- 
age ('  Indian  *  controls,  calling  the  ladies  '  squaws/  the  men 
'  braves,'  the  house  a  '  wigwam,'  etc.,  etc.,  are  excessively 
common;  or,  if  he  ventures  on  higher  intellectual  flights, 
he  abounds  in  a  curiously  vague  optimistic  philosophy-and- 
water,  in  which  phrases  about  spirit,  harmony,  beauty,  law, 
progression,  development,  etc.,  keep  recurring.     It  seems 


214  PSYCHOLOGY. 

exactly  as  if  one  author  composed  more  than  half  of  the 
trance-messages,  no  matter  by  whom  they  are  uttered. 
Whether  all  sub-conscious  selves  are  peculiarly  susceptible 
tn  a  certain  stratum  of  the  Zeitgeist,  and  get  their  inspira- 
tion from  it,  I  know  not;  but  this  is  obviously  the  case 
with  the  secondary  selves  which  become  'developed'  in 
spiritualist  circles.  There  the  beginnings  of  the  medium 
trance  are  indistinguishable  from  effects  of  hypnotic  sug- 
gestion. The  subject  assumes  the  role  of  a  medium 
simply  because  opinion  expects  it  of  him  under  the  condi- 
tions which  are  present;  and  carries  it  out  with  a  feeble- 
ness or  a  vivacity  proportionate  to  his  histrionic  gifts. 
But  the  odd  thing  is  that  persons  unexposed  to  spiritual- 
ist traditions  will  so  often  act  in  the  same  way  when  they 
become  entranced,  speak  in  the  name  of  the  departed,  go 
through  the  motions  of  their  several  death-agonies,  send 
messages  about  their  happy  home  in  the  summer-land, 
and  describe  the  ailments  of  those  present. 

I  have  no  theory  to  publish  of  these  cases,  the  actual 
beginning  of  several  of  which  I  have  personally  seen.  I 
am,  however,  persuaded  by  abundant  acquaintance  with  the 
trances  of  one  medium  that  the  '  control '  may  be  altogether 
different  from  any  possible  waking  self  of  the  person.  In 
the  case  I  have  in  mind,  it  professes  to  be  a  certain  departed 
French  doctor;  and  is,  I  am  convinced,  acquainted  with 
facts  about  the  circumstances,  and  the  living  and  dead 
relatives  and  acquaintances,  of  numberless  sitters  whom  the 
medium  never  met  before,  and  of  whom  she  has  never  heard 
the  names.  I  record  my  bare  opinion  here  unsupported  by 
the  evidence,  not,  of  course,  in  order  to  convert  anyone  to 
my  view,  but  because  I  am  persuaded  that  a  serious  study 
of  these  trance-phenomena  is  one  of  the  greatest  needs  of 
psychology,  and  think  that  my  personal  confession  may 
possibly  draw  a  reader  or  two  into  a  field  which  the  tsoi- 
disant  '  scientist '  usually  refuses  to  explore.* 

*  Some  of  the  evidence  for  this  medium's  supernormal  powers  is 


THE  SELF.  215 

Review,  and  Psychological  Conclusion. — To  sum  up  this 
long  chapter: — The  consciousness  of  Self  involves  a  stream 
of  thought,  each  part  of  which  as  '  I '  can  remember  those 
which  went  before,  know  the  things  they  knew,  and  care 
paramonntly  for  certain  ones  among  them  as  '  Me,'  and 
appropriate  to  these  the  rest.  This  Me  is  an  empirical 
aggregate  of  things  objectively  known.  The  /  which 
knows  them  cannot  itself  be  an  aggregate;  neither  for 
psychological  purposes  need  it  be  an  unchanging  meta- 
physical entity  like  the  Soul,  or  a  principle  like  the  tran- 
scendental Ego,  viewed  as  '  out  of  time.'  It  is  a  thought, 
at  each  moment  different  from  that  of  the  last  moment, 
but  appropriative  of  the  latter,  together  with  all  that  the 
latter  called  its  own.  All  the  experiential  facts  find  their 
place  in  this  description,  unencumbered  with  any  hypoth- 
esis save  that  of  the  existence  of  passing  thoughts  or  states 
of  mind. 

If  passing  thoughts  be  the  directly  verifiable  existents 
which  no  school  has  hitherto  doubted  them  to  be,  then  they 
are  the  only  '  Knower  '  of  which  Psychology,  treated  as  a 
natural  science,  need  take  any  account.  The  only  pathway 
that  I  can  discover  for  bringing  in  a  more  transcendental 
Thinker  would  be  to  deny  that  we  have  any  such  direct 
knowledge  of  the  existence  of  our  '  states  of  consciousness  ' 
as  common-sense  supposes  us  to  possess.  The  existence  of 
the  '  states '  in  question  would  then  be  a  mere  hypothesis, 
or  one  way  of  asserting  that  there  must  be  a  knower  correl- 
ative to  all  this  known;  but  the  problem  who  that  Tcnoiver 
is  would  have  become  a  metaphysical  problem.  With  the 
question  once  stated  in  these  terms,  the  notion  either  of  a 
Spirit  of  the  world  which  thinks  through  us,  or  that  of  a 
set  of  individual  substantial  souls,  must  be  considered  as 
prima  facie  on  a  par  with  our  own  '  psychological '  solu- 
tion, and   discussed    impartially.     I    myself   believe   that 

given  in  The  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  vol. 
vi.  p.  436,  and  in  the  last  Part  of  vol.  vn  (1892). 


*216  PSYCHO  LOO  7. 

room  for  much  future  inquiry  lies  in  this  direction.  The 
'  states  of  mind  '  which  every  psychologist  believes  in  are  by 
no  means  clearly  apprehensible,  if  distinguished  from  their 
objects.  But  to  doubt  them  lies  beyond  the  scope  of  our 
natural-science  (see  p.  1)  point  of  view.  And  in  this  book 
the  provisional  solution  which  we  have  reached  must  be 
t  he  final  word :  the  thoughts  themselves  are  the  thinkers. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

ATTENTION. 

The  Narrowness  of  Consciousness  — One  of  the  most  ex- 
traordinary facts  of  our  life  is' that,  although  we  are  be- 
sieged at  every  moment  by  impressions  from  our  whole 
sensory  surface,  we  notice  so  very  small  a  part  of  them. 
The  sum  total  of  our  impressions  never  enters  into  our 
experience,  consciously  so  called,  which  runs  through  this 
sum  total  like  a  tiny  rill  through  a  broad  flowery  mead. 
Yet  the  physical  impressions  which  do  not  count  are  there 
as  much  as  those  which  do,  and  affect  our  sense-organs  just 
as  energetically.  Why  they  fail  to  pierce  the  mind  is  a 
mystery,  which  is  only  named  and  not  explained  when  we 
invoke  die  Enge  des  Bewusstseins, '  the  narrowness  of  con- 
sciousness/ as  its  ground. 

Its  Physiological  Ground. — Our  consciousness  certainly  is 
narrow,  when  contrasted  with  the  breadth  of  our  sensory 
surface  and  the  mass  of  incoming  currents  which  are  at  all 
times  pouring  in.  Evidently  no  current  can  be  recorded 
in  conscious  experience  unless  it  succeed  in  penetrating  to 
the  hemispheres  and  filling  their  pathways  by  the  pro- 
cesses set  up.  When  an  incoming  current  thus  occupies 
the  hemispheres  with  its  consequences,  other  currents  are 
for  the  time  kept  out.  They  may  show  their  faces  at  the 
door,  but  are  turned  back  until  the  actual  possessors  of 
the  place  are  tired.  Physiologically,  then,  the  narrowness 
of   consciousness  seems  to  depend  on  the  fact  that  the 

activity  of  the  hemispheres  tends  at  all  times  to  be  a  con- 
solidated and  unified  affair,  determinable  now  by  this  cur- 
rent and  now  by  that,  but  determinable  only  as  a  whole. 
The  ideas  correlative  to  the  reigning  system  of  processes 


218  PSYCHOLOGY. 

are  those  which  are  said  to  'interest'  us  at  the  time;  and 
thus  thai  selective  character  of  our  attention  on  which  so 
much  stress  was  laid  on  pp.  173  ff.  appears  to  find  a 
physiological  ground.  At  all  times,  however,  there  is  a 
liability  to  disintegration  of  the  reigning  system.  The  con- 
solidation is  seldom  quite  complete,  the  excluded  currents 
are  not  wholly  abortive,  their  presence  r.ffects  the  'fringe' 
and  margin  of  our  thought. 

Dispersed  Attention. — Sometimes,  indeed,  the  normal 
consolidation  seems  hardly  to  exist.  At  such  moments  it 
is  possible  that  cerebral  activity  sinks  to  a  minimum. 
.Most  of  us  probably  fall  several  times  a  day  into  a  fit 
somewhat  like  this:  The  eyes  are  fixed  on  vacancy,  the 
sounds  of  the  world  melt  into  confused  unity,  the  attention 
is  dispersed  so  that  the  whole  body  is  felt,  as  it  were,  at 
once,  and  the  foreground  of  consciousness  is  Idled,  if  by 
anything,  by  a  soil  of  solemn  sense  of  surrender  to  the 
empty  passing  of  time.  In  the  dim  background  of  our 
mind  we  know  meanwhile  what  we  ought  to  be  doing:  get- 
ting up,  dressing  ourselves,  answering  the  person  who  has 
spoken  to  us,  trying  to  make  the  next  step  in  our  reason- 
ing. But  somehow  we  cannot  start;  the  pensfa  de  dcrriere 
la  tetc  fails  to  pierce  the  shell  of  lethargy  that  wraps  our 
state  about.  Every  moment  we  expect  the  spell  to  break, 
for  we  know  no  reason  why  it  should  continue.  But  it 
does  continue,  pulse  after  pulse,  and  we  float  with  it.  until 
— also  without  reason  that  we  can  discover — an  energy  is 
given,  something— we  know  not  what — enables  us  to 
gather  ourselves  together,  we  wink  our  eyes,  we  shake  our 
heads,  the  background-ideas  become  effective,  and  the 
wheels  of  life  go  round  again. 

This  is  the  extreme  of  what  is  called  dispersed  atten- 
tion. Between  this' extreme  and  tin1  extreme  of  concen- 
trated attention,  in  which  absorption  in  the  interest  of  the 
moment  is  so  complete  that  grave  bodily  injuries  may  be 
nnfelt,  there  are  intermediate  degrees,  and  these  have  been 
studied  experimentally.     The  problem  is  known  as  that  of 


ATTENTION.  219 

The  Span  of  Consciousness. — How  many  objects  can  we 
attend  to  at  once  when  they  are  not  embraced  in  one  con- 
ceptual system?  Prof.  Cattell  experimented  with  combi- 
nations of  letters  exposed  to  the  eye  for  so  short  a  fraction 
of  a  second  that  attention  to  them  in  succession  seemed  to 
be  ruled  out.  When  the  letters  formed  familiar  words, 
three  times  as  many  of  them  could  be  named  as  when 
their  combination  was  meaningless.  If  the  words  formed 
a  sentence,  twice  as  many  could  be  caught  as  when  they 
had  no  connection.  "  The  sentence  was  then  apprehended 
as  a  whole.  If  not  apprehended  thus,  almost  nothing  is 
apprehended  of  the  several  words;  but  if  the  sentence  as 
a  whole  is  apprehended,  then  the  words  appear  very  dis- 
tinct." 

A  word  is  a  conceptual  system  in  which  the  letters  do 
not  enter  consciousness  separately,  as  they  do  when  appre- 
hended alone.  A  sentence  flashed  at  once  upon  the  eye  is 
such  a  system  relatively  to  its  words.  A  conceptual  systexn 
may  mean  many  sensible  objects,  may  be  translated  later 
into  them,  but  as  an  actual  existent  mental  state,  it  does 
not  consist  of  the  consciousnesses  of  these  objects.  When  I 
think  of  the  word  man  as  a  whole,  for  instance,  what  is  in 
my  mind  is  something  different  from  what  is  there  when  I 
think  of  the  letters  m,  a,  and  n,  as  so  many  disconnected 
data. 

When  data  are  so  disconnected  that  we  have  no  concep- 
tion which  embraces  them  together  it  is  much  harder  to  ap- 
prehend several  of  them  at  once,  and  the  mind  tends  to  let 
go  of  one  whilst  it  attends  to  another.  Still,  within  limits 
this  can  be  avoided.  M.  Paulhan  has  experimented  on  the 
matter  by  declaiming  one  poem  aloud  whilst  he  repeated  a 
different  one  mentally,  or  by  writing  one  sentence  whilst 
speaking  another,  or  by  performing  calculations  on  paper 
whilst  reciting  poetry.  He  found  that  "  the  most  favorable 
condition  for  the  doubling  of  the  mind  was  its  simultaneous 
application  to  two  heterogeneous  operations.  Two  opera- 
tions of  the  same  sort,  two  multiplications,  two  recitations, 


220  P8YC1I0L0UY. 

or  the  reciting  of  one  poem  and  writing  of  another,  render 
the  process  more  uncertain  and  difficult." 

M.  Paulhan  compared  the  time  occupied  by  the  same  two 
operations  done  simultaneously  or  in  succession,  and  found 
that  there  was  often  a  considerable  gain  of  time  from  doing 
them  simultaneously.     For  instance: 

"I  multiply  421312  212  by  2;  the  operation  takes  6 
seconds;  the  recitation  of  four  verses  also  takes  6  seconds. 
But  the  two  operations  done  at  once  only  take  6  seconds, 
so  that  there  is  no  loss  of  time  from  combining  them." 

If,  then,  by  the  original  question,  how  many  objects  can 
we  attend  to  at  once,  be  meant  how  many  entirely  discon- 
nected systems  or  processes  can  go  on  simultaneously,  the 
answer  is,  not  easily  more  than  one,  unless  the  processes  are 
very  habitual ;  but  then  tivo,  or  even  three,  without  very 
much  oscillation  of  the  attention.  Where,  however,  the 
processes  are  less  automatic,  as  in  the  story  of  Julius 
Caesar  dictating  four  letters  whilst. he  writes  a  fifth>  there 
must  be  a  rapid  oscillation  of  the  mind  from  one  to  the 
next,  and  no  consequent  gain  of  time. 

When  the  things  to  be  attended  to  are  minute  sensations, 
and  when  the  effort  is  to  be  exact  in  noting  them,  it  is 
found  that  attention  to  one  interferes  a  good  deal  with  the 
perception  of  the  other.  A  good  deal  of  fine  work  has 
been  clone  in  this  field  by  Professor  Wundt.  He  tried  to 
note  the  exact  position  on  a  dial  of  a  rapidly  revolving 
hand,  at  the  moment  when  a  bell  struck.  Here  were  two 
disparate  sensations,  one  of  vision,  the  other  of  sound,  to  be 
noted  together.  But  it  was  found  that  in  a  long  and 
patient  research,  the  eye-impression  could  seldom  or  never 
be  noted  at  the  exact  moment  when  the  bell  actually 
struck.  An  earlier  or  a  later  point  were  all  that  could  be 
seen. 

The  Varieties  of  Attention. — Attention  may  be  divided 
into  kinds  in  various  ways.     It  is  either  to 

a)  Objects  of  sense  (sensorial  attention) ;  or  to 


ATTENTION.  221 

b)  Ideal  or  represented  objects  (intellectual  attention). 
It  is  either 

c)  Immediate;  or 

d)  Derived:  immediate,  when  the  topic  or  stimulus  is 
interesting  in  itself,  without  relation  to  anything  else;  de- 
rived, when  it  owes  its  interest  to  association  with  some 
other  immediately  interesting  thing.  What  I  call  derived 
attention  has  been  named  'apperceptive'  attention.  Fur- 
thermore, Attention  may  be  either 

e)  Passive,  reflex,  involuntary,  effortless;  or 

\f)  Active  and  voluntary. 
Voluntary  attention  is  always  derived;  we  never  make 
an  effort  to  attend  to  an  object  except  for  the  sake  of  some 
remote  interest  which  the  effort  will  serve.  But  both  sen- 
sorial and  intellectual  attention  may  be  either  passive  or 
voluntary. 

In  involuntary  attention  of  the  immediate  sensorial  sort 
the  stimulus  is  either  a  sense-impression,  very  intense, 
voluminous,  or  sudden;  or  it  is  an  instinctive  stimulus,  a 
perception  which,  by  reason  of  its  nature  rather  than  its 
mere  force,  appeals  to  some  one  of  our  congenital  impulses 
and  has  a  directly  exciting  quality.  In  the  chapter  on 
Instinct  we  shall  see  how  these  stimuli  differ  from  one 
animal  to  another,  and  what  most  of  them  are  in  man: 
strange  things,  moving  things,  wild  animals,  bright  things, 
pretty  things,  metallic  things,  words,  blows,  blood,  etc., 
etc.,  etc. 

Sensitiveness  to  immediately  exciting  sensorial  stimuli 
characterizes  the  attention  of  childhood  and  youth.  In 
mature  age  we  have  generally  selected  those  stimuli  which 
are  connected  with  one  or  more  so-called  permanent  inter- 
ests, and  our  attention  has  grown  irresponsive  to  the  rest. 
But  childhood  is  characterized  by  great  active  energy,  and 
has  few  organized  interests  by  which  to  meet  new  impres- 
sions and  decide  whether  they  are  worthy  of  notice  or  not, 
and  the  consequence  is  that  extreme  mobility  of  the  atten- 
tion with  which  we  are  all  familiar  in  children,  and  which 


2SJ2  PSYCHOLOGY 

makes  of  their  first  lesson 8  such  chaotic  affairs.  Any 
Btrong  sensation  whatever  produces  accommodation  of  the 
organs  which  perceive  it,  and  absolute  oblivion, for  the  time 
being,  of  the  task  in  hand.  This  reflex  and  passive  charac- 
ter of  the  attention  which,  as  a  French  writer  says,  makes 
the  child  seem  to  belong  less  to  himself  than  to  every  ob- 
ject which  happens  to  catch  his  notice,  is  the  first  thing 
which  the  teacher  must  overcome.  It  never  is  overcome  in 
sonic  people,  whose  work,  to  the  end  of  life,  gets  done  in 
the  interstices  of  their  mind-wandering. 

The  passive  sensorial  attention  is  derived  when  the 
impression,  without  being  either  strong  or  of  an  instinc- 
tively exciting  nature,  is  connected  by  previous  experience 
and 'education  with  things  that  are  so.  These  things  may 
be  called  the  motives  of  the  attention.  The  impression 
draws  an  interest  from  them,  or  perhaps  it  even  fuses  into 
a  single  complex  object  with  them;  the  result  is  that  it  is 
brought  into  the  focus  of  the  mind.  A  faint  tapper  se  is 
not  an  interesting  sound;  it  may  well  escape  being  dis- 
criminated from  the  general  rumor  of  the  world.  But 
when  it  is  a  signal,  as  that  of  a  lover  on  the  window-pane, 
hardly  will  it  go  unperceived.     Herbart  writes: 

"  How  a  bit  of  bad  grammar  wounds  the  ear  of  the 
purist!  How  a  false  note  hurts  the  musician!  or  an 
offence  against  good  manners  the  man  of  the  world !  How 
rapid  is  progress  in  a  science  when  its  first  principles  have 
been  so  well  impressed  upon  us  that  we  reproduce  them 
mentally  with  perfect  distinctness  and  ease!  How  slow 
and  uncertain,  on  the  other  hand,  is  our  learning  of  the 
principles  themselves,  when  familiarity  with  the  still  more 
elementary  percepts  connected  with  the  subject  has  not 
given  us  an  adequate  predisposition ! — Apperceptive  atten- 
tion may  be  plainly  observed  in  very  small  children  when, 
hearing  the  speech  of  their  elders,  as  yet  unintelligible  to 
them,  they  suddenly  catch  a  single  known  word  here  and 
there,  and  repeat  it  to  themselves;  yes!  even  in  the  dog 
who  looks  round  at  us  when  we  speak  of  him  and  pro- 


ATTENTION.  223 

nounce  his  name.  Not  far  removed  is  the  talent  which 
mind-wandering  school-boys  display  during  the  hours  of 
instruction,  of  noticing  every  moment  in  which  the 
teacher  tells  a  story.  I  remember  classes  in  which,  in- 
struction being  uninteresting,  and  discipline  relaxed,  a 
buzzing  murmur  was  always  to  be  heard,  which  invariably 
stopped  for  as  long  a  time  as  an  anecdote  lasted.  How 
could  the  boys,  since  they  seemed  to  hear  nothing,  notice 
when  the  anecdote  began  ?  Doubtless  most  of  them 
always  heard  something  of  the  teacher's  talk ;  but  most  of 
it  had  no  connection  with  their  previous  knowledge  and 
occupations,  and  therefore  the  separate  words  no  sooner 
entered  their  consciousness  than  they  fell  out  of  it  again ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  no  sooner  did  the  words  awaken 
old  thoughts,  forming  strongly-connected  series  with  which 
the  new  impression  easily  combined,  than  out  of  new  and 
old  together  a  total  interest  resulted  which  drove  the 
vagrant  ideas  below  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  and 
brought  for  a  while  settled  attention  into  their  place." 

Involuntary  intellectual  attention  is  immediate  when  we 
follow  in  thought  a  train  of  images  exciting  or  interesting 
per  se;  derived,  when  the  images  are  interesting  only  as 
means  to  a  remote  end,  or  merely  because  they  are  asso- 
ciated with  something  which  makes  them  dear.  The 
brain-currents  may  then  form  so  solidly  unified  a  sys- 
tem, and  the  absorption  in  their  object  be  so  deep,  as  to 
banish  not  only  ordinary  sensations,  but  even  the  severest 
pain.  Pascal,  Wesley,  Robert  Hall,  are  said  to  have  had 
this  capacity.  Dr.  Carpenter  says  of  himself  that  "  he  has 
frequently  begun  a  lecture  whilst  suffering  neuralgic  pain 
so  severe  as  to  make  him  apprehend  that  he  would  find  it 
impossible  to  proceed;  yet  no  sooner  has  he  by  a  deter- 
mined effort  fairly  launched  himself  into  the  stream  of 
thought,  than  he  has  found  himself  continuously  borne 
along  without  the  least  distraction,  until  the  end  has  come, 
and  the  attention  nas  been  released;  when  the  pain  has 
recurred  with  a  force  that  has  overmastered  all  resistance, 


224  PSYCHOLOGY. 

making  him  wonder  how  he  could  have  ever  ceased  to  feel 
it."  * 

Voluntary  Attention. — Dr.  Carpenter  speaks  of  launch- 
ing himself  by  a  determined  effort.  This  effort  character- 
izes what  we  called  active  or  voluntary  attention.  It  is  a 
feeling  which  everyone  knows,  but  which  most  people 
would  call  quite  indescribable.  We  get  it  in  the  sensorial 
sphere  whenever  we  seek  to  catch  an  impression  of  extreme 
faintness,  be  it  of  sight,  hearing,  taste,  smell,  or  touch; 
we  get  it  whenever  we  seek  to  discriminate  a  sensation 
merged  in  a  mass  of  others  that  are  similar;  we  get  it 
whenever  we  resist  the  attractions  of  more  potent  stimuli 
and  keep  our  mind  occupied  with  some  object  that  is 
naturally  unimpressive.  We  get  it  in  the  intellectual 
sphere  under  exactly  similar  conditions:  as  when  we 
strive  to  sharpen  and  make  distinct  an  idea  which  we  but 
vaguely  seem  to  have;  or  painfully  discriminate  a  shade 
of  meaning  from  its  similars;  or  resolutely  hold  fast  to 
a  thought  so  discordant  with  our  impulses  that,  if  left 
unaided,  it  would  quickly  yield  place  to  images  of  an  ex- 
citing and  impassioned  kind.  All  forms  of  attentive  effort 
would  be  exercised  at  once  by  one  whom  we  might  suppose 
at  a  dinner-party  resolutely  to  listen  to  a  neighbor  giving 
him  insipid  and  unwelcome  advice  in  alow  voice,  whilst  all 
around  the  guests  were  loudly  laughing  and  talking  about 
exciting  and  interesting  things. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  voluntary  attention  sustained 
for  more  than  a  feiv  seconds  at  a  time.  What  is  called 
sustained  voluntary  attention  is  a  repetition  of  successive 
efforts  which  bring  back  the  topic  to  the  mind.  The  topic 
once  brought  back,  if  a  congenial  one,  develops;  and  if  its 
development  is  interesting  it  engages  the  attention  pas- 
sively for  a  time.  Dr.  Carpenter,  a  moment  back,  described 
the  stream  of  thought,  once  entered,  as  '  bearing  him  along.' 

*  Mental  Physiol.,  §  124.  The  oft-cited  case  of  soldiers  in  battle 
not  perceiving  that  they  are  wounded  is  of  an  analogous  sort- 


ATTENTION.  225 

This  passive  interest  may  be  short  or  long.  As  soon  as  it 
flags,  the  attention  is  diverted  by  some  irrelevant  thing, 
and  then  a  voluntary  effort  may  bring  it  back  to  the  topic 
again;  and  so  on,  under  favorable  conditions,  for  hours 
together.  During  all  this  time,  however,  note  that  it  is 
not  an  identical  object  in  the  psychological  sense,  but  a 
succession  of  mutually  related  objects  forming  an  identical 
topic  only,  upon  which  the  attention  is  fixed.  No  one  can 
possibly  attend  continuously  to  an  object  that  does  not 
change. 

Now  there  are  always  some  objects  that  for  the  time 
being  will  not  develop.  They  simply  go  out ;  and  to  keep 
the  mind  upon  anything  related  to  them  requires  such  in- 
cessently  renewed  effort  that  the  most  resolute  Will  ere 
long  gives  out  and  lets  its  thought-:  follow  the  more  stimu- 
lating solicitations  after  it  has  withstood  them  for  what 
length  of  time  it  can.  There  are  topics  known  to  every 
man  from  which  he  shies  like  a  frightened  horse,  and 
which  to  get  a  glimpse  of  is  to  shun.  Such  are  his  ebbing 
assets  to  the  spendthrift  in  full  career.  But  why  single 
out  the  spendthrift,  when  to  every  man  actuated  by  pas- 
sion the  thought  of  interests  which  negate  the  passion  can 
hardly  for  more  than  a  fleeting  instant  stay  before  the 
mind  ?  It  is  like  *  memento  mori '  in  the  heydey  of  the 
pride  of  life.  Nature  rises  at  such  suggestions,  and  ex- 
cludes them  from  the  view: — How  long,  0  healthy  reader, 
can  you  now  continue  thinking  of  your  tomb  ? — In  milder 
instances  the  difficulty  is  as  great,  especially  when  the 
brain  is  fagged.  One  snatches  at  any  and  every  passing 
pretext,  no  matter  how  trivial  or  external,  to  escape  from 
the  odiousness  of  the  matter  in  hand.  I  know  a  person, 
for  example,  who  will  poke  the  fire,  set  chairs  straight, 
pick .  dust-specks  from  the  floor,  arrange  his  table,  snatch 
up  the  newspaper,  take  down  any  book  which  catches  his 
eye,  trim  his  nails,  waste  the  morning  anyhow,  in  short, 
and  all  without  premeditation, — simply  because  the  only 
thing  he  ought  to  attend  to  is  the  preparation  of  a  noon- 


226 


PSYCIlo  i  ,00  T, 


(lav  lesson   in   formal   logic  which   he  detests.     Anything 
but  that! 

Once  more,  the  object  must,  change.  When  it,  is  o?ie  of 
sight,  it  will  actually  become  invisible;  when  of  hearing, 
inaudible, — if  we  attend  to  it  too  nnmovingly.  llelmholtz, 
who  has  put  his  sensorial  attention  to  the  severest  tests,  by 
using  his  eyes  on  objects  which  in  common  life  are  ex- 
pressly overlooked,  makes  some  interesting  remarks  ou  this 
point  in  his  section  on  retinal  rivalry.  The  phenomenon 
called  by  that  name  is  this,  that  if  we  look  with  each  eye 
upon  a  different  picture  (as  in  the  annexed  stereoscopic 
slide),   sometimes  one   picture,   sometimes   the   other,  or 


Fia.  54. 

parts  of  both,  will  come  to  consciousness,  but  hardly  ever 
both  combined.     Helmholtz  now  says: 

"  1  find  that  I  am  able  to  attend  voluntarily,  now  to  one 
and  now  to  the  other  system  of  lines;  and  that  then  this 
system  remains  visible  alone  for  a  certain  time,  whilst  the 
other  completely  vanishes.  This  happens,  for  example, 
whenever  I  try  to  count  the  lines  first  of  one  and  then  of 
the  other  system.  .  .  .  But  it  is  extremely  hard  to  chain 
the  attention  down  to  one  of  the  systems  for  long,  unless 
we  associate  with  our  looking  some  distinct  purpose  which 
Keeps  the  activity  of  the  attention  perpetually  renewed. 


ATTENTION.  227 

Such  a  one  is  counting  the  lines,  comparing  their  intervals, 
or  the  like.  An  equilibrium  of  the  attention,  persistent 
for  any  length  of  time,  is  under  no  circumstances  attain- 
able. The  natural  tendency  of  attention  when  left  to 
itself  is  to  wander  to  ever  new  things;  and  so  soon  as 
the  interest  of  its  object  is  over,  so  soon  as  nothing  new 
is  to  be  noticed  there,  it  passes,  in  spite  of  our  will,  to 
something  else.  If  we  wish  to  keep  it  upon  one  and  the 
same  object,  we  must  seek  constantly  to  find  out  something 
new  about  the  latter,  especially  if  other  powerful  impres- 
sions are  attracting  us  away." 

These  words  of  Helmholtz  are  of  fundamental  impor- 
tance. And  if  true  of  sensorial  attention,  how  much  more 
true  are  they  of  the  intellectual  variety!  The  conditio 
sine  qua  non  of  sustained  attention  to  a  given  topic  of 
thought  is  that  we  should  roll  it  over  and  over  incessantly 
and  consider  different  aspects  and  relations  of  it  in  turn. 
Only  in  pathological  states  will  a  fixed  and  ever  monoto- 
nously recurring  idea  possess  the  mind. 

Genius  and  Attention. — And  now  we  can  see  why  it  is  that 
what  is  called  sustained  attention  is  the  easier,  the  richer 
in  acquisitions  and  the  fresher  and  more  original  the  mind. 
In  such  minds,  subjects  bud  and  sprout  and  grow.  At 
every  moment,  they  please  by  a  new  consequence  and  rivet 
the  attention  afresh.  But  an  intellect  unfurnished  with 
materials,  stagnant,  unoriginal,  will  hardly  be  likely  to 
consider  any  subject  long.  A  glance  exhausts  its  possibili- 
ties of  interest.  Geniuses  are  commonly  believed  to  excel 
other  men  in  their  power  of  sustained  attention.  In  most 
of  them,  it  is  to  be  feared,  the  so-called  '  power '  is  of  the 
passive  sort.  Their  ideas  coruscate.,  every  subject  branches 
infinitely  before  their  fertile  minds,  and  so  for  hours  they 
may  be  rapt.  But  it  is  their  genius  making  them  aften- 
tire,  not  their  attention  making  geniuses  of  them.  And, 
when  we  come  down  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  we  see  that 
they  differ  from  ordinary  men  less  in  the  character  of 
their  attention    than   in   the  nature  of  the  objects  upon 


228  PSYCHOLOGY. 

which  it  is  successively  bestowed.  In  the  genius,  these 
form  a  concatenated  series,  suggesting  each  other  mutually 
by  some  rational  law.  Therefore  we  call  the  attention 
'sustained'  and  the  topic  of  meditation  for  hours  'the 
same.'  In  the  common  mm  the  series  is  for  the  most  part 
incoherent,  the  objects  have  no  rational  bond,  and  we  call 
the  attention  wandering  and  unfixed. 

It  is  probable  that  genius  tends  actually  to  prevent  a 
man  from  acquiring  habits  of  voluntary  attention,  and  that 
moderate  intellectual  endowments  are  the  soil  in  which  \vt 
may  best  expect,  here  as  elsewhere,  the  virtues  of  the  will, 
strictly  so  called,  to  thrive.  But,  whether  the  attention 
come  by  grace  of  genius  or  by  dint  of  will,  the  longer  one 
does  attend  to  a  topic  the  more  mastery  of  it  one  has.  And 
the  faculty  of  voluntarily  bringing  back  a  wandering  atten- 
tion over  and  over  again  is  the  very  root  of  judgment, 
character,  and  will.  No  one  is  compos  sui  if  he  have  it  not. 
An  education  which  should  improve  this  faculty  would  be 
the  education  par  excellence.  But  it  is  easier  to  define  this 
ideal  than  to  give  practical  directions  for  bringing  it 
about.  The  only  general  pedagogic  maxim  bearing  on 
attention  is  that  the  more  interests  the  child  has  in  advance 
in  the  subject,  the  better  he  will  attend.  Induct  him 
therefore  in  such  a  way  as  to  knit  each  new  thing  on  to  some 
acquisition  already  there;  and  if  possible  awaken  curiosity, 
so  that  the  new  thing  shall  seem  to  come  as  an  answer,  or 
part  of  an  answer,  to  a  question  preexisting  in  his  mind. 

The  Physiological  Conditions  of  Attention.- -These  seem 
to  be  the  following: 

1)  The  appropriate  cortical  centre  must  be  excited  idea- 
tionally  as  well  as  sensorially,  before  attention  to  an  object 
can  tafke  place. 

2)  The  sense-organ  must  then  adapt  itself  to  clearest 
reception  of  the  object,  by  the  adjustment  of  its  muscular 
apparatus. 

3)  In  all  probability  a  (retain  afflux  of  blood  to  the  cor' 
tical  centre  must  ensue. 


ATTENTION.  229 

Of  this  third  condition  I  will  say  no  more,  since  we 
have  no  proof  of  it  in  detail,  and  I  state  it  on  the  faith  of 
geiieral  analogies.  Conditions  1)  and  2),  however,  are  veri- 
fiable; and  the  best  order  will  be  to  take  the  latter  first. 

The  Adaptation  of  the  Sense-organ. — This  occurs  not 
only  in  sensorial  but  also  in  intellectual  attention  to  an 
object. 

That  it  is  present  when  we  attend  to  sensible  things  is 
obvious.  When  we  look  or  listen  we  accommodate  our 
eyes  and  ears  involuntarily,  and  we  turn  our  head  and  body 
as  well;  when  we  taste  or  smell  we  adjust  the  tongue,  lips, 
and  respiration  to  the  object;  in  feeling  a  surface  we  move 
the  palpatory  organ  in  a  suitable  way;  in  all  these  acts, 
besides  making  involuntary  muscular  contractions  of  a 
positive  sort,  we  inhibit  others  which  might  interfere  with 
the  result — we  close  the  eyes  in  tasting,  suspend  the  res- 
piration in  listening,  etc.  The  result  is  a  more  or  less 
massive  organic  feeling  that  attention  is  going  on.  This 
organic  feeling  we  usually  treat  as  part  of  the  sense  of  our 
own  activity,  although  it  comes  in  to  us  from  our  organs 
after  they  are  accommodated.  Any  object,  then,  if  imme- 
diately exciting,  causes  a  reflex  accommodation  of  the 
sense-organ,  which  has  two  results — first,  the  feeling  of 
activity  in  question;  and  second,  the  object's  increase  in 
clearness. 

But  in  intellectual  attention  similar  feelings  of  activity 
occur.  Fechner  Avas  the  first,  I  believe,  to  analyze  these 
feelings,  and  discriminate  them  from  the  stronger  ones 
just  named.     He  writes: 

"When  we  transfer  the  attention  from  objects  of  one 
sense  to  those  of  another,  we  have  an  indescribable  feeling 
(though  at  the  same  time  one  perfectly  determinate,  and 
reproducible  at  pleasure),  of  altered  direction  or  differently 
localized  tension  {Spannung).  AYe  feel  a  strain  forward 
in  the  eyes,  one  directed  sidewise  in  the  ears,  increasing 
with  the  degree  of  our  attention,  and  changing  according 
as  we  look  at  an  object  carefully,  or  listen  to  something 


230  PSYCHOLOGY. 

attentively;  and  we  speak  accordingly  of  straining  the 
attention.  The  difference  is  most  plainly  felt  when  the 
attention  oscillates  rapidly  between  eye  and  ear;  and  the 
feeling  localizes  itself  with  most  decided  difference  in 
regard  to  the  various  sense-organs,  according  as  we  wish  to 
discriminate  a  thing  delicately  by  touch,  taste,  or  smell. 

'•  But  now  I  have,  when  I  try  to  vividly  recall  a  picture 
of  memory  or  fancy,  a  feeling  perfectly  analogous  to  that 
which  I  experience  when  I  seek  to  apprehend  a  thing 
keenly  by  eye  or  ear;  and  this  analogous  feeling  is  very 
differently  localized.  While  in  sharpest  possible  attention 
to  real  objects  (as  well  as  to  after-images)  the  strain  is 
plainly  forwards,  and  (when  the  attention  changes  from 
one  sense  to  another)  only  alters  its  direction  between  the 
several  external  sense-organs,  leaving  the  rest  of  the  head 
free  from  strain,  the  case  is  different  in  memory  or  fancy, 
for  here  the  feeling  withdraws  entirely  from  the  external 
sense-organs,  and  seems  rather  to  take  refuge  in  that  part 
of  the  head  which  the  brain  fills.  If  I  wish,  for  example, 
to  recall  a  place  or  person,  it  will  arise  before  me  with 
vividness,  not  according  as  I  strain  my  attention  forwards, 
but  rather  in  proportion  as  I,  so  to  speak,  retract  it  back- 
wards." 

In  myself  the  'backward  retraction'  which  is  felt  during 
attention  to  ideas  of  memory,  etc.,  seems  to  be  principally 
constituted  by  the  feeling  of  an  actual  rolling  outwards 
and  upwards  of  the  eyeballs,  such  as  occurs  in  sleep,  and 
is  the  exact  opposite  of  their  behavior  when  we  look  at  a 
physical  thing. 

This  accommodation  of  the  sense-organ  is  not.  however, 
the  essential  process,  even  in  sensorial  attention.  It  is  a 
secondary  result  which  may  be  prevented  from  occurring, 
as  certain  observations  show.  Usually,  it  is  true  that  no 
object  lying  in  the  marginal  portions  of  the  field  of  vision 
can  catch  our  attention  without  at  the  same  time  'catch- 
ing our  eye' — that  is,  fatally  provoking  such  movements 
pf   rotation  and   accommodation  as  will  focus  its  image 


ATTENTION.  231 

on  the  fovea,  or  point  of  greatest   sensibility.     Practice, 
however,  enables  us,  with  effort,  to  attend  to  a  marginal 
object  whilst  keeping  the  eyes  immovable.     The   object 
under  these  circumstances  never  becomes  perfectly  distinct 
--the  place  of  its  image  on  the  retina  makes  distinctness 
impossible — but  (as  anyone  can  satisfy  himself  by  trying) 
we  become  more  vividly  conscious  of  it  than  we  were  be- 
fore the  effort  was  made.     Teachers  thus  notice  the  acts 
of  children  in  the  school-room  at  whom  they  appear  not 
to  be  looking.     Women  in  general  train  their  peripheral 
visual   attention   more  than  men.     Helmholtz  states  the 
fact  so  strikingly  that  I  will  quote  his  observation  in  full. 
He  was  trying  to  combine  in  a  single  solid  percept  pairs 
of    stereoscopic    pictures    illuminated    instantaneously  by 
the    electric    spark.     The   pictures  were   in  a  dark    box 
which  the   spark  from  time  to  time  lighted  up;   and,  to 
keep  the  eyes  from  wandering  betweenwhiles,  a  pin-hole 
was  pricked  through  the  middle  of  each  picture,  through 
which  the  light  of  the  room  came,  so  that  each  eye  had 
presented  to  it  during  the  dark  intervals  a  single  bright 
point,     With  parallel  optical  axes  these  points  combined 
into  a  single  image;   and  the  slightest  movement  of  the 
eyeballs    was   betrayed   by  this  Image  at   once   becoming 
double.     Helmholtz  now  found  that  simple  linear  figures 
could,  when  the  eyes  were  thus  kept  immovable,  be  per- 
ceived as  solids  at  a  single  flash  of  the  spark.     But  when 
the  figures  were  complicated  photographs,  many  successive 
flashes  were  required  to  grasp  their  totality. 

"  Now  it  is  interesting/'  he  says,  "  to  find  that,  although 
we  keep  steadily  fixating  the  pin-holes  and  never  allow 
their  combined  image  to  break  into  two,  we  can  neverthe- 
less, before  the  spark  comes,  keep  our  attention  voluntarily 
turned  to  any  particular  portion  we  please  of  the  dark 
field,  so  as  then,  when  the  spark  comes,  to  receive  an  im- 
pression only  from  such  parts  of  the  picture  as  lie  in  this 
region.  In  this  respect,  then,  our  attention  is  quite  inde- 
pendent of  the  position  and  accommodation  of  the  eyes, 


2:;j  rsrcnoLOGY. 

and  of  any  Known  alteration  in  these  organs,  and  free  to 
direct  itself  by  a  conscious  and  voluntary  effort  upon  any 
selected  portion  of  a  dark  and  undifferenced  field  of  view. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  important  observations  for  a  future 
theory  of  attention."  * 

The  Ideational  Excitement  of  the  Centre. — But  if  the 
peripheral  part  of  the  picture  in  this  experiment  be  not 
physically  accommodated  for,  what  is  meant  by  its  sharing 
our  attention  ?  What  happens  when  wc  '  distribute  '  or 
'  disperse '  the  latter  upon  a  thing  for  which  we  remain 
unwilling  to  *  adjust '  ?  This  leads  us  to  that  second  feat- 
ure in  the  process,  the  '  ideational  excitement '  of  which  we 
spoke.  The  effort  to  attend  to  the  marginal  region  of  the 
picture  consists  in  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  effort  to 
form  as  clear  an  idea  as  is  possible  of  what  is  there  por- 
trayed. The  idea  is  to  come  to  the  help  of  the  sensation 
and  make  it  more  distinct.  It  may  come  with  effort,  and 
such  a  mode  of  coming  is  the  remaining  part  of  what  we 
know  as  our  attention's  '  strain  '  under  the  circumstances. 
Let  us  show  how  universally  present  in  our  acts  of  atten- 
tion is  this  anticipatory  thinking  of  the  thing  to  which  we 
attend.  Mr.  Lewes's  name  of  preperception  seems  the  best 
possible  designation  for  this  imagining  of  an  experience 
before  it  occurs. 

It  must  as  a  matter  of  course  be  present  when  the  atten- 
tion is  of  the  intellectual  variety,  for  the  thing  attended  to 
then  is  nothing  but  an  idea,  an  inward  reproduction  or 
conception.  If  then  we  prove  ideal  construction  of  the 
object  to  be  present  in  sensorial  attention,  it  will  be 
present  everywhere.  When,  however,  sensorial  attention 
is  at  its  height,  it  is  impossible  to  tell  how  much  of  the 
percept  comes  from  without  and  how  much  from  within; 
but  if  we  find  that  the  preparation  we  make  for  it  always 
partly  consists  of  the  creation  of  an  imaginary  duplicate 
of  the  object  in  the  mind,  that  will  be  enough  to  establish 
the  point  in  dispute. 

*  Physiol.  Optik,  p.  741. 


ATTENTION.  233 

In  reaction-time  experiments,  keeping  our  mind  intent 
upon  the  motion  about  to  be  made  shortens  the  time. 
This  shortening  we  ascribed  in  Chap.  VIII  to  the  fact 
that  the  signal  when  it  comes  finds  the  motor-centre  already 
charged  almost  to  the  explosion-point  in  advance.  Ex- 
pectant attention  to  a  reaction  thus  goes  with  sub-excite- 
ment of  the  centre  concerned. 

Where  the  impression  to  be  caught  is  very  weak,  the  way 
not  to  miss  it  is  to  sharpen  our  attention  for  it  by  prelimi- 
nary contact  with  it  in  a  stronger  form.  Helmholtz  says : 
"  If  we  wish  to  begin  to  observe  overtones,  it  is  advisable, 
just  before  the  sound  which  is  to  be  analyzed,  to  sound 
very  softly  the  note  of  which  we  are  in  search.  ...  If  you 
place  the  resonator  which  corresponds  to  a  certain  over- 
tone, for  example  g'  of  the  sound  c,  against  your  ear,  and 
then  make  the  note  c  sound,  you  will  hear  g'  much  strength- 
ened by  the  resonator.  .  .  .  This  strengthening  by  the  reso- 
nator can  be  used  to  make  the  naked  ear  attentive  to  the 
sound  which  it  is  to  catch.  For  when  the  resonator  is 
gradually  removed,  the  g'  grows  weaker;  but  the  atten- 
tion, once  directed  to  it,  holds  it  now  more  easily  fast,  and 
the  observer  hears  the  tone  g'  now  in  the  natural  unaltered 
sound  of  the  note  with  his  unaided  ear." 

Wundt,  commenting  on  experiences  of  this  sort,  says 
that  "  The  same  thing  is  to  be  noticed  in  weak  or  fugi- 
tive visual  impressions.  Illuminate  a  drawing  by  electric 
sparks  separated  by  considerable  intervals,  and  after  the 
first,  and  often  after  the  second  and  third  spark,  hardly 
anything  will  be  recognized.     But  the  confused  image  is 

held  fast  in  memory;  each  successive  illumination  com- 
pletes it;  and  so  at  last  we  attain  to  a  clearer  perception. 
The  primary  motive  to  this  inward  activity  proceeds  usu- 
ally from  the  outer  impression  itself.  We  hear  a  sound  in 
which,  from  certain  associations,  we  suspect  a  certain  over- 
tone; the  next  thing  is  to  recall  the  overtone  in  memory; 
and  finally  we  catch  it  in  the  sound  we  hear.  Or  perhaps 
we  see  some  mineral  substance  we  have  met  before;  the 


234  PSYCHOLOGY. 

impression  awakens  the  memory-image,  which  again  more 
or  less  completely  melts  with  the  impression  itself.  .  .  . 
Different  qualties  of  impression  require  disparate  adapta- 
tions. And  we  remark  that  our  feeling  of  the  strain  of 
our  inward  attentiveness  increases  with  every  increase  in 
the  strength  of  the  impressions  on  whose  perception  we 
are  intent." 

The  natural  way  of  conceiving  all  this  is  under  the  sym- 
bolic form  of  a  brain-eell  played  upon  from  two  directions. 
Whilst  the  object  excites  it  from  without,  other  brain-cells 
arouse  it  from  within.  The  plenary  energy  of  the  brain- 
cell  demands  I  he  co-operation  of  both  factors:  not  when 
merely  present,  but,  when  both  present  and  inwardly  imag- 
ined, is  the  object  fully  attended  to  and  perceived. 

A  few  additional  experiences  will  now  be  perfectly  clear. 
Helmholtz,  for  instance,  adds  this  observation  concerning 
the  stereoscopic  pictures  lit  by  the  electric  spark.  "In 
pictures,"  he  says,  "so  simple  that  it  is  relatively  difficult 
for  me  to  see  them  double,  I  can  succeed  in  seeing  them 
double,  even  when  the  illumination  is  only  instantaneous, 
the  moment  I  strive  to  imagine  in  a  /ire///  way  how  they 
ought  then,  to  look.  The  influence  of  attention  is  here 
pure;  for  all  eye-movements  are  shut  out." 

Again,  writing  of  retinal  rivalry,  Helmholtz  says: 

"  It  is  not  a  trial  of  strength  between  two  sensations, 
but  depends  on  our  fixing  or  failing  to  fix  the  attention. 
Indeed,  there  is  scarcely  any  phenomenon  so  well  fitted  for 
the  study  of  the  causes  which  are  capable  of  determining 
the  attention.  It  is  not  enough  to  form  the  conscious 
intention  of  seeing  first  with  one  eye  and  then  with  the 
other;  ive  must  form,  as  clear  a  notion  as  possible  of  what 
we  expect  to  see.     Then  it  will  actually  appear." 

In  Figs.  55  and  56,  where  the  result  is  ambiguous,  we  can 
make  the  change  from  one  apparent  form  to  the  other  by 
imagining  strongly  in  advance  the  form  we  wish  to  see. 
Similarly  in  those  puzzles  where  certain  lirie^  in  a  picture 
form  by  their  combination  an  object  thai  has  no  connec- 


ATTENTION. 


285 


tion  with  what  the  picture  obviously  represents ;  or  indeed 
in  every  case  where  an  object  is  inconspicuous  and  hard  to 
discern  from  the  background;  we  may  not  be  able  to  see  it 
for  a  long  time;  but,  having  once  seen  it,  we  can  attend  to 
it  again  whenever  we  like,  on  account  of  the  mental  dupli- 


FlG.  55. 


Fig.  56. 


cate  of  it  which  our  imagination  now  bears.  In  the  mean- 
ingless French  words  'pas  de  lieu  Rhone  que  nous/  who 
can  recognize  immediately  the  English  'paddle  your  own 
canoe'  ?  But  who  that  has  once  noticed  the  identity  can 
fail  to  have  it  arrest  his  attention  again  ?  When  watching 
for  the  distant  clock  to  strike,  our  mind  is  so  filled  with  its 
image  that  at  every  moment  we  think  we  hear  the  longed- 
for  or  dreaded  sound.  So  of  an  awaited  footstep.  Every 
stir  in  the  wood  is  for  the  hunter  his  game ;  for  the  fugi- 
tive his  pursuers.  Every  bonnet  in  the  street  is  momen- 
tarily taken  by  the  lover  to  enshroud  the  head  of  his  idol. 
The  image  in  the  mind  is  the  attention;  the  preperception 
is  half  of  the  perception  of  the  looked-for  thing. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  men  have  no  eyes  but  for  those 
aspects  of  things  which  they  have  already  been  taught  to 
discern.  Any  one  of  us  can  notice  a  phenomenon  after  it 
has  once  been  pointed  out,  which  not  one  in  ten  thousand 
could  ever  have  discovered  for  himself.  Even  in  poetry 
*nd  the  arts,  some  one   has   to   come  and  tell  us  what 


236  PSYCHO  LOOT. 

aspects  to  single  out,  and  what  effects  to  admire,  before 
our  aesthetic  nature  can  'dilate'  to  its  full  extentand  never 
'with  the  wrong  emotion.'  In  kindergarten-instruction 
one  of  the  exercises  is  to  make  the  children  see  how  many 
features  they  can  point  out  in  such  an  object  as  a  flower 
or  a  stuffed  bird.  They  readily  name  the  features  they 
know  already,  such  as  leaves,  tail,  bill,  feet.  But  they  may 
look  for  hours  without  distinguishing  nostrils,  claws,  scales, 
etc.,  until  their  attention  is  called  to  these  details;  there- 
after, however,  they  see  them  every  time.  In  short,  the 
only  things  winch  we  commonly  see  are  those  which  we 
preperceive,  and  the  oidy  things  which  we  preperceive  are 
those  which  have  been  labelled  for  us,  and  the  labels 
stamped  into  our  mind.  If  we  lost  our  stock  of  labels 
we  should  be  intellectually  lost  in  the  midst  of  the  world. 

Educational  Corollaries.— First,  to  strengthen  attention 
in.  children  who  care  nothing  for  the  subject  they  are 
studying  and  let  their  wits  go  wool-gathering,  The  interest 
here  must  be  'derived'  from  something  that  the  teacher 
associates  with  the  task,  a  reward  or  a  punishment  if  noth- 
ing less  internal  comes  to  mind.  If  a  topic  awakens  no 
spontaneous  attention  it  must  borrow  an  interest  from 
elsewhere.  But  the  best  interest  is  internal,  and  we  must 
always  try,  in  teaching  a  class,  to  knit  our  novelties  by 
rational  links  on  to  things  of  which  they  already  have  pre- 
perceptions.  The  old  and  familiar  is  readily  attended  to 
by  the  mind  and  helps  to  hold  in  turn  the  new,  forming,  in 
llerbartian  phraseology,  an  'Apperceptionsmasse'  for  it. 
Of  course  the  teacher's  talent  is  best  shown  by  knowing 
what  'Apperceptionsmasse'  to  use.  Psychology  can  only 
lav  down  the  general  rule. 

Second,  take  that  mind-wandering  which  at  a  later  age 
may  trouble  us  whilst  reading  or  listening  to  a  discourse. 
If  attention  be  the  reproduction  of  the  sensation  from 
within,  the  habit  of  reading  not  merely  with  the  eye,  and 
of  listening  not  merely  with  the  ear,  but  of  articulating  to 

one's  self  tne  words  seen  or  heard,  ought  to  deepen  one's 


ATTENTION.  237 

| 
attention  to  the  latter.  Experience  shows  that  this  is  the 
case.  I  can  keep  my  wandering  mind  a  great  deal  more 
closely, upon  a  conversation  or  a  lecture  if  I  actively  re-echo 
to  myself  the  words  than  if  I  simply  hear  them;  and  I  find 
a  number  of  my  students  who  report  benefit  from  volun- 
tarily adopting  a  similar  course. 

Attention  and  Free  Will. — I  have  spoken  as  if  our  at- 
tention were  wholly  determined  by  neural  conditions.  I 
believe  that  the  array  of  things  we  can  attend  to  is  so  de- 
termined. No  object  can  catch  our  attention  except  by 
the  neural  machinery.  But  the  amount  of  the  attention 
which  an  object  receives  after  it  has  caught  our  mental 
eye  is  another  question.  It  often  takes  effort  to  keep 
the  mind  upon  it.  We  feel  that  we  can  make  more  or 
less  of  the  effort  as  we  choose.  If  this  feeling  be  not 
deceptive,  if  our  effort  be  a  spiritual  force,  and  an  in- 
determinate one,  then  of  course  it  contributes  coequally 
with  the  cerebral  conditions  to  the  result.  Though  it 
introduce  no  new  idea,  it  will  deepen  and  prolong  the  stay 
Tn" consciousness  of  innumerable  ideas  which  else  would 
fade  more  quickly  away.  The  delay  thus  gained  might  not 
be  more  than  a  second  in  duration — but  that  second  may 
be  critical ;  for  in  the  constant  rising  and  falling  of  con- 
siderations in  the  mind,  where  two  associated  systems  of 
them  are  nearly  in  equilibrium  it  is  often  a  matter  of  but  a 
second  more  or  less  of  attention  at  the  outset,  whether  one 
system  shall  gain  force  to  occupy  the  field  and  develop 
itself,  and  exclude  the  other,  or  be  excluded  itself  by  the 
other.  When  developed,  it  may  make  us  act;  and  that  act 
may  seal  our  doom.  When  we  come  to  the  chapter  on  the 
Will,  we  shall  see  that  the  whole  drama  of  the  voluntary 
life  hinges  on  the  amount  of  attention,  slightly  more  or 
slightly  less,  which  rival  motor  ideas  may  receive.  But 
the  whole  feeling  of  reality,  the  whole  sting  and  excitement 
of  our  voluntary  life,  depends  on  our  sense  that  in  it  things 
are  really  being  decided  from  one  moment  to  another,  and 
that  it  is  not  the  dull  rattling  off  of  a  chain  that   was 


•238  PSYCHO  LOOT. 

forged  innumerable  ages  ago.  This  appearance,  which 
makes  life  and  history  tingle  with  such  a  tragic  zest,  may 
not  be  an  illusion.  Effort  may  be  an  original  force  and  not 
a  mere  effect,  and  it  may  he  indeterminate  in  amount. 
The  last  word  of  sober  insight  here  is  ignorance,  for  the 
forces  engaged  are  too  delicate  ever  to  be  measured  in 
detail.  Psychology,  however,  as  a  would-be  '  Science/  must, 
like  every  other  Science,  postulate  complete  determinism 
in  its  facts,  and  abstract  consequently  from  the  effects  of 
free  will,  even  if  such  a  force  exist.  I  shall  do  so  in  this 
book  like  other  psychologists;  well  knowing,  however,  that 
such  a  procedure,  although  a  methodical  device  justified  hy 
the  subjective  need  of  arranging  the  facts  in  a  simple  and 
'scientific'  form,  does  not  settle  the  ultimate  truth  of  the 
free-will  question  one  way  or  the  other. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

CONCEPTION. 

Different  states  of  mind  can  mean  the  same.  The  func- 
tion by  which  we  mark  off,  discriminate,  draw  a  line  round, 
and  identify  a  numerically  distinct  subject  of  discourse  is 
called  conception.  It  is  plain  that  whenever  one  and  the 
same  mental  state  thinks  of  many  things,  it  must  be  the 
vehicle  of  many  conceptions.  If  it  has  such  a  multiple 
conceptual  function,  it  may  be  called  a  state  of  compound 
conception. 

We  may  conceive  realities  supposed  to  be  extra-mental, 
as  steam-engine;  fictions,  as  mermaid;  or  mere  entia  ra- 
tionis,  like  difference  or  nonentity.  But  whatever  we  do 
conceive,  our  conception  is  of  that  and  nothing  else — noth- 
ing else,  that  is,  instead  of  that,  though  it  may  be  of  much 
else  in  addition  to  that.  Each  act  of  conception  results 
from  our  attention's  having  singled  out  some  one  part  of 
the  mass  of  matter-for-thought  which  the  world  presents, 
and  from  our  holding  fast  to  it,  without  confusion.  Con- 
fusion occurs  when  we  do  not  know  whether  a  certain 
object  proposed  to  us  is  the  same  with  one  of  our  meanings 
or  not;  so  that  the  conceptual  function  requires,  to  be 
complete,  that  the  thought  should  not  only  say  'I  mean 
this,'  but  also  say  'I  don't  mean  that.' 

Each  conception  thus  'eternally  remains  what  it  is,  and 
never  can  become  another.  The  mind  may  change  its 
states,  and  its  meanings,  at  different  times;  may  drop  one 
conception  and  take  up  another:  but  the  dropped  concep- 
tion itself  can  in  no  intelligible  sense  be  said  to  change 
into  its  successor.  The  paper,  a  moment  ago  white,  I  may 
now  see  to  be  scorched  black.     But  my  conception  'white' 


240  PSYCHOLOGY. 

does  not  change  into  ray  conception  *  black.'  On  the  con- 
trary, it  stays  alongside  of  the  objective  blackness,  as  a 
different  meaning  in  my  mind,  and  by  so  doing  lets  me 
judge  the  blackness  as  the  paper's  change.  Unless  it 
stayed,  I  should  simply  say  '  blackness'  and  know  no  more. 
Thus,  amid  the  flux  of  opinions  and  of  physical  things,  the 
world  of  conceptions,  or  things  intended  to  be  thought 
about,  stands  stiff  and  immutable,  like  Plato's  Kealm  of 

Ideas. 

Some  conceptions  are  of  things,  some  of  events,  some  of 
qualities.  Any  fact,  be  it  thing,  event,  or  quality,  may  be 
conceived  sufficiently  for  purposes  of  identification,  if  only 
it  be  singled  out  and  marked  so  as  to  separate  it  from 
other  things.  Simply  calling  it '  this '  or  '  that '  will  suffice. 
To  speak  in  technical  language,  a  subject  may  be  conceived 
by  its  denotation,  with  no  connotation,  or  a  very  minimum 
of  connotation,  attached.  The  essential  point  is  that  it 
should  be  re-identified  by  us  as  that  which  the  talk  is 
about;  and  no  full  representation  of  it  is  necessary  for  this, 
even  when  it  is  a  fully  representable  thing. 

In  this  sense,  creatures  extremely  low  in  the  intellectual 
scale  may  have  conception.  All  that  is  required  is  that 
they  should  recognize  the  same  experience  again.  A  polyp 
would  be  a  conceptual  thinker  if  a  feeling  of  'Hollo! 
thingumbob  again!'  ever  flitted  through  its  mind.  This 
sense  of  sameness  is  the  very  keel  and  backbone  of  our 
consciousness.  The  same  matters  can  be  thought  of  in 
different  states  of  mind,  and  some  of  these  states  can  know 
that  they  mean  the  same  matters  which  the  other  states 
meant.  In  other  words,  the  mind  can  always  intend,  and 
knotv  when  it  intends,  to  think  the  Same. 

Conceptions  of  Abstract,  of  Universal,  and  of  Problematic 
Objects.— The  sense  of  our  meaning  is  an  entirely  peculiar 
element  of  the  thought.  It  is  one  of  those  evanescent  and 
'  transitive '  facts  of  mind  which  introspection  cannot  turn 
round  upon,  and  isolate  and  hold  up  for  examination,  as  an 
entomologist  passes  round   an    insect  on  a  pin.     In   the 


CONCEPTION.  24 1 

(somewhat  clumsy)  terminology  I  have  used,  it  has  to  do 
with  the  'fringe'  of  the  object,  and  is  a  'feeling  of  ten- 
dency,' whose  neural  counterpart  is  undoubtedly  a  lot  of 
dawning  and  dying  processes  too  faint  and  complex  to  be 
traced.  (See  p.  169.)  The  geometer,  with  his  one  definite 
figure  before  him,  knows  perfectly  that  his  thoughts  apply 
to  countless  other  figures  as  well,  and  that  although  he 
sees  lines  of  a  certain  special  bigness,  direction,  color,  etc., 
he  means  not  one  of  these  details.  When  I  use  the  word 
man  in  two  different  sentences,  I  may  have  both  times 
exactly  the  same  sound  upon  my  lij>s  and  the  same  picture 
in  my  mental  eye,  but  I  may  mean,  and  at  the  very 
moment  of  uttering  the  word  and  imagining  the  picture 
know  that  I  mean,  two  entirely  different  things.  Thus 
when  I  say :  "  What  a  wonderful  man  Jones  is !"  I  am  per- 
fectly  aware  that  I  mean  by  man  to  exclude  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  or  Smith.  But  when  I  say:  "What  a  wonder- 
ful thing  Man  is!"  I  am  equally  well  aware  that  I  mean 
no  such  exclusion.  This  added  consciousness  is  an  ab- 
solutely positive  sort  of  feeling,  transforming  what  would 
otherwise  be  mere  noise  or  vision  into  something  under- 
stood ;  and  determining  the  sequel  of  my  thinking,  the 
later  words  and  images,  in  a  perfectly  definite  way. 

No  matter  how  definite  and  concrete  the  habitual 
imagery  of  a  given  mind  may  be,  the  things  represented 
appear  always  surrounded  by  their  fringe  of  relations,  and 
this  is  as  integral  a  part  of  the  mind's  object  as  the  things 
themselves  are.  We  come,  by  steps  with  which  everyone 
is  sufficiently  familiar,  to  think  of  whole  classes  of  things 
as  well  as  of  single  specimens;  and  to  think  of  the  special 
qualities  or  attributes  of  things  as  well  as  of  the  complete 
things — in  other  words,  we  come  to  have  universals  and 
abstracts,  as  the  logicians  call  them,  for  our  objects.  We 
also  come  to  think  of  objects  which  are  only  problematic, 
or  not  yet  definitely  represeutable,  as  well  as  of  objects 
imagined  in  all  their  details.  An  object  which  is  problem- 
atic is  defined  by  its  relations  only.     We  think  of  a  thing 


242  PSYCHOLOGY. 

about  which  certain  facts  must  obtain.  But  we  do  not  m 
know  how  the  thing  will  look  when  realized — that  is, 
although  conceiving  it  we  cannot  imagine  it.  We  have  in 
the  relations,  however,  enough  to  individualize  our  topic 
and  distinguish  it  from  all  the  other  meanings  of  our  mind. 
Thus,  for  example,  we  may  conceive  of  a  perpetual- motior 
machine.  Such  a  machine  is  a  qucssitum  of  a  perfectly 
definite  kind, — we  can  always  tell  whether  the  actual 
machines  offered  us  do  or  do  not  agree  with  what  we  mean 
by  it.  The  natural  possibility  or  impossibility  of  the  thing 
never  touches  the  question  of  its  conceivability  in  this 
problematic  way.  'Eound-square,'  again,  or  *  black-white- 
thing/  are  absolutely  definite  conceptions;  it  is  a  mere 
accident,  as  far  as  conception  goes,  that  they  happen  to 
stand  for  things  which  nature  never  shows  us,  and  of 
which  we  consequently  can  make  no  picture. 

The  nominalists  and  conceptualists  carry  on  a  great 
quarrel  over  the  question  whether  "the  mind  can  frame 
abstract  or  universal  ideas."  Ideas,  it  should  be  said,  of 
abstract  or  universal  objects.  But  truly  in  comparison 
with  the  wonderful  fact  that  our  thoughts,  however  dif- 
ferent otherwise,  can  still  be  of  the  same,  the  question 
whether  that  same  be  a  single  thing,  a  whole  class  of 
things,  an  abstract  quality  or  something  unimaginable,  is 
an  insignificant  matter  of  detail.  Our  meanings  are  of 
singulars,  particulars,  indefinites,  problematics,  and  univer- 
sals,  mixed  together  in  every  way.  A  singular  individual 
is  as  much  conceived  when  he  is  isolated  and  identified 
away  from  the  rest  of  the  world  in  my  mind,  as  is  the  most 
rarefied  and  universally  applicable  quality  he  may  possess 
— being,  for  example,  when  treated  in  the  same  way._  From 
every  point  of  view,  the  overwhelming  and  portentous  char- 
acter ascribed  to  universal  conceptions  is  surprising.  Why, 
from  Socrates  downwards,  philosophers  should  have  vied 
with  each  other  in  scorn  of  the  knowledge  of  the  particular, 
and  in  adoration  of  that  of  the  general,  is  hard  to  under- 
stand, seeing  that  the  more  adorable  knowledge  ought  to  be 


CONCEPTION.  243 

that  of  the  more  adorable  things,  and  that  the  things  of 
worth  are  all  concretes  and  singulars.  The  only  value  of 
universal  characters  is  that  they  help  us,  by  reasoning,  to 
know  new  truths  about  individual  things.  The  restriction 
of  one's  meaning,  moreover,  to  an  individual  thing,  proba- 
bly requires  even  more  complicated  brain-processes  than 
its  extension  to  all  the  instances  of  a  kind;  and  the  mere 
mystery,  as  such,  of  the  knowledge,  is  equally  great, 
whether  generals  or  singulars  be  the  things  known.  In 
sum,  therefore,  the  traditional  Universal-worship  can  only 
be  called  a  bit  of  perverse  sentimentalism,  a  philosophic 
'  idol  of  the  cave/ 

Nothing  can  be  conceived  as  the  same  without  being  con- 
ceived in  a  novel  state  of  mind.  It  seems  hardly  necessary 
to  add  this,  after  what  was  said  on  p.  156.  Thus,  my  arm- 
chair is  one  of  the  things  of  which  I  have  a  conception ;  1 
knew  it  yesterday  and  recognized  it  when  I  looked  at  it. 
But  if  I  think  of  it  to-day  as  the  same  arm-chair  w^liich  I 
looked  at  yesterday,  it  is  obvious  that  the  very  conception 
of  it  as  the  same  is  an  additional  complication  to  the 
thought,  whose  inward  constitution  must  alter  in  conse- 
quence. In  short,  it  is  logically  impossible  that  the  same 
thing  should  be  hnoivn  as  the  same  by  two  successive  copies 
of  the  same  thought.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  thoughts  by 
which  we  know  that  we  mean  the  same  thing  are  apt  to  be 
very  different  indeed  from  each  other.  We  think  the  thing 
now  substantively,  now  transitively;  now  in  a  direct  image, 
now  in  one  symbol,  and  now  in  another  symbol;  but  never- 
theless we  somehow  always  do  know  which  of  all  possible 
subjects  we  have  in  mind.  Introspective  psychology  must 
here  throw  up  the  sponge;  the  fluctuations  of  subjective 
life  are  too  exquisite  to  be  described  by  its  coarse  terms. 
It  must  confine  itself  to  bearing  witness  to  the  fact  that 
all  sorts  of  different  subjective  states  do  form  the  vehicle 
by  which  the  same  is  known;  and  it  must  contradict  the 
opposite  view. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

DISCRIMINATION. 

Discrimination  versus  Association. — On  p.  15  I  spoke  of 
the  baby's  first  object  being  the  germ  out  of  which  his 
whole  later  universe  develops  by  the  addition  of  new  parts 
from  without  and  the  discrimination  of  others  within. 
Experience,  in  other  words,  is  trained  both  by  association 
and  dissociation,  and  psychology  must  be  writ  both  in  syn- 
thetic and  in  analytic  terms.  Our  original  sensible  totals 
are,  on  the  one  hand,  subdivided  by  discriminative  atten- 
tion, and,  on  the  other,  united  with  other  totals, — either 
through  the  agency  of  our  own  movements,  carrying  our 
senses  from  one  part  of  space  to  another,  or  because  new 
objects  come  successively  and  replace  those  by  which  we 
were  at  first  impressed.  The  '  simple  impression'  of 
Hume,  the  '  simple  idea '  of  Locke  are  abstractions,  never 
realized  in  experience.  Life,  from  the  very  first,  presents 
us  with  concreted  objects,  vaguely  continuous  with  the 
rest  of  the  world  which  envelops  them  in  space  and  time, 
and  potentially  divisible  into  inward  elements  and  parts. 
These  objects  we  break  asunder  and  reunite.  We  must 
do  both  for  our  knowledge  of  them  to  grow ;  and  it  is  hard 
to  say,  on  the  whole,  which  we  do  most.  But  since  the 
elements  with  which  the  traditional  associationism  performs 
its  constructions — 'simple  sensations/  namely — are  all  pro- 
ducts of  discrimination  carried  to  a  high  pitch,  it  seems  as 
if  -re  ought  to  discuss  the  subject  of  analytic  attention  and 
discrimination  first.  * 

^Discrimination  defined. — The  noticing  of  any  part  what- 
ever of  our  object  is  an  act  of  discrimination. •  Already  on 
p,  2 IS  I  have  described  the  manner  in  which  we  often  spoil- 


DISCRIMINATION.  245 

taneously  lapse  into  the  undiseriminating  state,  even  with 
regard  to  objects  which  we  have  already  learned  to  distin- 
guish. Such  anesthetics  as  chloroform,  nitrous  oxide,  etc., 
sometimes  bring  about  transient  lapses  even  more  total,  in 
which  numerical  discrimination  especially  seems  gone;  for 
one  sees  light  and  hears  sound,  but  whether  one  or  man} 
lights  and  sounds  is  quite  impossible  to  tell.  Where  the 
parts  of  an  object  have  already  been  discerned,  and  each 
made  the  object  of  a  special  discriminative  act,  we  can 
with  difficulty  feel  the  object  again  in  its  pristine  unity; 
and  so  prominent  may  our  consciousness  of  its  composition 
be,  that  we  may  hardly  believe  that  it  ever  could  have 
appeared  undivided.  But  this  is  an  erroneous  view,  the 
undeniable  fact  being  that  any  number  of  impressions, 
from  any  number  of  sensory  sources,  falling  simulta- 
neously on  a  mind  which  has  not  yet  experienced 
them  separately,  will  yield  a  single  undivided  object  to 
that  mind.  The  law  is  that  all  things  fuse  that  can  fuse, 
and  that  nothing  separates  except  what  must.  What 
makes  impressions  separate  is  what  we  have  to  study  in 
this  chapter. 

Conditions  which  favor  Discrimination. — I  will  treat  suc- 
cessively of  differences : 

(1)  So  far  as  they  are  directly  felt; 

(2)  So  far  as  they  are  inferred; 

(3)  So  far  as  they  are  singled  out  in  compounds. 
Differences  directly  felt. — The  first  condition  is  that  the 

things  to  be  discriminated  must  be  different,  either  in  time, 
place,  or  quality.  In  other  words,  and  physiologically 
speaking,  they  must  awaken  neural  processes  which  are 
distinct.  But  this,  as  we  have  just  seen,  though  an  indis- 
pensable condition,  is  not  a  sufficient  condition.  To  begin 
with,  the  several  neural  processes  must  be  distinct  enough. 
No  one  can  help  singling  out  a  black  stripe  on  a  white 
ground,  or  feeling  the  contrast  between  a  bass  note  and  a 
high  one  sounded  immediately  after  it.  Discrimination  is 
here  involuntary.     But  where  the  objective  difference  is 


V46  PSYCHOLOGY. 

less,  discrimination  may  require  considerable  effort  of  at- 
tention to  be  performed  at  all. 

Secondly,  the  sensations  excited  by  the  differing  objects 
must  not  fall  simultaneously,  but  must  fall  in  immediate 
succession  upon  the  same  organ.  It  is  easier  to  compare 
successive  than  simultaneous  sounds,  easier  to  compare  two 
weights  or  two  temperatures  by  testing  one  after  the  other 
with  the  same  hand,  than  by  using  both  hands  and  com- 
paring both  at  once.  Similarly  it  is  easier  to  discriminate 
shades  of  light  or  color  by  moving  the  eye  from  one  to  the 
other,  so  that  they  successively  stimulate  the  same  retinal 
tract.  In  testing  the  local  discrimination  of  the  skin,  by 
applying  compass-points,  it  is  found  that  they  are  felt  to 
touch  different  spots  much  more  readily  when  set  down 
one  after  the  other  than  when  both  are  applied  at  once. 
In  the  latter  case  they  may  be  two  or  three  inches  apart  on 
the  back,  thighs,  etc.,  and  still  feel  as  if  they  were  set  down 
in  one  spot.  Finally,  in  the  case  of  smell  and  taste  it  ia 
well-nigh  impossible  to  compare  simultaneous  impressions 
at  all.  The  reason  why  successive  impression  so  much 
favors  the  result  seems  to  be  that  there  is  a  real  sensation 
of  difference,  aroused  by  the  shock  of  transition  from  one 
perception  to  another  which  is  unlike  the  first.  This  sen- 
sation of  difference  has  its  own  peculiar  quality,  no  matter 
what  the  terms  may  be,  between  which  it  obtains.  It  is, 
in  short,  one  of  those  transitive  feelings,  or  feelings  of  re- 
lation, of  which  I  treated  in  a  former  place  (p.  101);  and, 
when  once  aroused,  its  object  lingers  in  the  memory  along 
with  the  substantive  terms  which  precede  and  follow,  and 
enables  our  judgments  of  comparison  to  be  made. 

Where  the  difference  between  the  successive  sensations 
is  but  slight,  the  transition  between  them  must  be  made  as 
immediate  as  possible,  and  both  must  be  compared  in  mem- 
ory, in  order  to  get  the  best  results.  One  cannot  judge 
accurately  of  the  difference  between  two  similar  wines 
whilst  the  second  is  still  in  one's  mouth.  So  of  sounds, 
warmths,  etc. — we  must  get  the  dying  phases  of  both  sen- 


.      DISCRIMINATION.  247 

nations  or  the  pair  we  are  comparing.  Where,  however 
the  difference  is  strong,  this  condition  is  immaterial,  and 
we  can  then  compare  a  sensation  actually  felt  with  another 
carried  in  memory  only.  The  longer  the  interval  of  time 
between  the  sensations,  the  more  uncertain  is  their  dis- 
crimination. 

The  difference,  thus  immediately  felt  between  two  terms, 
s  independent  of  our  ability  to  say  anything  about  either 
of  the  terms  by  itself.  I  can  feel  two  distinct  spots  to  be 
touched  on  my  skin,  yet  not  know  which  is  above  and 
which  below.  I  can  observe  two  neighboring  musical 
tones  to  differ,  and  still  not  know  which  of  the  two  is  the 
higher  in  pitch.  Similarly  I  may  discriminate  two  neigh- 
boring tints,  whilst  remaining  uncertain  which  is  the  bluer 
or  the  yellower,  or  how  either  differs  from  its  mate. 

I  said  that  in  the  immediate  succession  of  m  upon  n  the 
shock  of  their  difference  is  felt.  It  is  felt  repeatedly  when 
we  go  back  and  forth  from  rx  to  n ;  and  we  make  a  point  of 
getting  it  thus  repeatedly  (by  alternating  our  attention  at 
least)  whenever  the  shock  is  so  slight  as  to  be  with  diffi- 
culty perceived.  But  in  addition  to  being  felt  at  the  brief 
instant  of  transition,  the  difference  also  feels  as  if  incor- 
porated and  taken  up  into  the  second  term,  which  feels 
'  different-f rom-the-first '  even  while  it  lasts.  It  is  obvious 
that  the  'second  term'  of  the  mind  in  this  case  is  not  bald 
n,  but  a  very  complex  object;  and  that  the  sequence  is  not 
simply  first  'mf  then  'difference,'  then  *?i';  but  first  'm,' 
then  *  difference,'  then  '  n-different-from-m.'  The  first  and 
third  states  of  mind  are  substantive,  the  second  transitive. 
As  our  brains  and  minds  are  actually  made,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  get  certain  m's  and  n's  in  immediate  sequence  and 
to  keep  them  pure.  If  kept  pure,  it  would  mean  that  they 
remained  uncompared.  With  us,  inevitably,  by  a  mechan- 
ism which  we  as  yet  fail  to  understand,  the  shock  of  differ- 
ence is  felt  between  them,  and  the  second  object  is  not  n 
pure,  but  n-as-different-from-m.  The  pure  idea  of  n  is 
never  in  the  mind  at  all  when  m  has  gone  before. 


248  PSYCHOLOGY. 

Differences  inferred.— With  such  direct  perceptions  of 
difference  as  this,  we  must  not  confound  those  entirely  un- 
like cases  in  which  wo  infer  that  two  things  must  differ 
because  we  know  enough  about  each  of  them  taken  by 
itself  to  warrant  our  classing  them  under  distinct  heads. 
It  often  happens,  when  the  interval  is  long  between  two 
experiences,  that  our  judgments  are  guided,  not  so  much 
by  a  positive  image  or  copy  of  the  earlier  one,  as  by  our 
recollection  of  certain  facts  about  it.  Thus  I  know  that 
the  sunshine  to-day  is  less  bright  than  on  a  certain  day 
last  week,  because  I  then  said  it  was  quite  dazzling,  a 
remark  I  should  not  now  care  to  make.  Or  I  know  myself 
to  feel  livelier  row  than  I  did  last  summer,  because  I  can 
now  psychologize,  and  then  I  could  not.  We  are  constantly 
comparing  feelings  with  whose  quality  our  imagination 
has  no  sort  of  acquaintance  at  the  time — pleasures,  or 
pains,  for  example.  It  is  notoriously  hard  to  conjure  up 
in  imagination  a  lively  image  of  eithe"  of  these  classes 
of  feeling.  The  associationists  may  prate  of  an  idea  of 
pleasure  being  a  pleasant  idea,  of  an  idea  of  pain  being  a 
painful  one,  but  the  unsophisticated  sense  of  mankind  is 
against  them,  agreeing  with  Homer  that  the  memory  of 
griefs  when  past  may  be  a  joy,  and  with  Dante  that  there 
is  no  greater  sorrow  than,  in  misery,  to  recollect  one's 
happier  time. 

The  'Singling  out'  of  Elements  in  a  Compound. — It  is 
safe  to  lay  it  down  as  a  fundamental  principle  that  any 
total  impression  made  on  the  mind  must  be  unanalyzabh 
so  long  as  its  elements  have  never  been  experienced  apart 
or  in  other  combinations  elsewhere.  The  components  of 
an  absolutely  changeless  group  of  not-elsewhere-occur- 
ring attributes  could  never  be  discriminated.  If  all  cold 
things  were  wet,  and  all  wet  things  cold;  if  all  hard 
things  pricked  our  skin,  and  no  other  things  did  so:  is 
it  likely  that  we  should,  discriminate  between  coldness 
and  wetness,  and  hardness  and  pungency,  respectively  ? 
If  all  liquids  were  transparent  and   no  non-liquid,  were 


DISCRIMINATION.  249 

transparent,  it  would  be  long  before  we  had  separate  names 
for  liquidity  and  transparency.  If  heat  were  a  function  of 
position  above  the  earth's  surface,  so  that  the  higher  a 
thing  was  the  hotter  it  became,  one  word  would  serve  for 
hot  and  high.  We  have,  in  fact,  a  number  of  sensations 
whose  concomitants  are  invariably  the  same,  and  we  find 
it,  accordingly,  impossible  to  analyze  them  out  from  the 
totals  in  which  they  are  found.  The  contraction  of  the 
diaphragm  and  the  expansion  of  the  lungs,  the  shortening 
of  certain  muscles  and  the  rotation  of  certain  joints,  are 
examples.  We  learn  that  the  causes  of  such  groups  of  feel- 
ings are  multiple,  and  therefore  we  frame  theories  about 
the  composition  of  the  feelings  themselves,  by  *  fusion/ 
'integration/  'synthesis/  or  what  not.  But  by  direct  in- 
trospection no  analysis  of  the  feelings  is  ever  made.  A 
conspicuous  case  will  come  to  view  when  we  treat  of  the 
emotions.  Every  emotion  has  its  'expression/  of  quick 
breathing,  palpitating  heart,  flushed  face,  or  the  like.  The 
expression  gives  rise  to  bodily  feelings;  and  the  emotion 
is  thus  necessarily  and  invariably  accompanied  by  these 
bodily  feelings.  The  consequence  is  that  it  is  impossible 
to  apprehend  it  as  a  spiritual  state  by  itself,  or  to  analyze 
it  away  from  the  lower  feelings  in  question.  It  is  in  fact 
impossible  to  prove  that  it  exists  as  a  distinct  psychic 
fact.  The  present  writer  strongly  doubts  that  it  does  so 
exist. 

In  general,  then,  if  an  object  affects  us  simultaneously 
in  a  number  of  ways,  abed,  we  get  a  peculiar  integral  im- 
pression, which  thereafter  characterizes  to  our  mind  the 
individuality  of  that  object,  and  becomes  the  sign  of  its 
presence;  and  which  is  only  resolved  into  a,  b,  c,  and  d, 
respectively,  by  the  aid  of  farther  experiences.  These  we 
now  may  turn  to  consider. 

If  any  single  quality  or  constituent,  a,  of  such  an  object 
have  previously  been  knoivn  by  us  isolatedly,  or  have  in 
any  other  manner  already  become  an  object  of  separate 
acquaintance  on  our  part,  so  that  we  have  an  image  of  it, 


250  PSYCHOLOGY. 

distinct  or  vague,  in  our  mind,  disconnected  with  bed, 
then  thai  constituent  a  may  be  analyzed  out  from  the  total 
impression.  Analysis  of  a  thing  means  separate  attention 
to  each  of  its  parts.  In  Chapter  XIII  we  saw  that  one 
condition  of  attending  to  a  thing  was  the  formation  from 
within  of  a  separate  image  of  that  thing,  which  should,  as 
it  were,  go  out  to  meet  the  impression  received.  Attention 
being  the  condition  of  analysis,  and  separate  imagination 
being  the  condition  of  attention,  it  follows  also  that  sepa- 
rate imagination  is  the  condition  of  analysis.  Only  such 
elem&nts  as  ice  are  acquainted  with,  and  can  imagine 
separately,  can  be  discriminated  within  a  total  sense-im- 
pression. The  image  seems  to  welcome  its  own  mate 
from  out  of  the  compound,  and  to  separate  it  from  the 
other  constituents;  and  thus  the  compound  becomes  broken 
for  our  consciousness  into  parts. 

All  the  facts  cited  in  Chapter  XIII  to  prove  that  attention 
involves  inward  reproduction  prove  that  discrimination 
involves  it  as  well.  In  looking  for  any  object  in  a  room, 
for  a  book  in  a  library,  for  example,  we  detect  it  the  more 
readily  if,  in  addition  to  merely  knowing  its  name,  etc.,  we 
carry  in  our  mind  a  distinct  image  of  its  appearance.  The 
assafoedita  in  'Worcestershire  sauce'  is  not  obvious  to  any- 
one who  has  not  tasted  assafoetida  per  se.  In  a  'cold* 
color  an  artist  would  never  be  able  to  analyze  out  the  per- 
vasive presence  of  blue,  unless  he  had  previously  made 
acquaintance  with  the  color  blue  by  itself.  All  the  colors 
we  actually  experience  are  mixtures.  Even  the  purest 
primaries  always  come  to  us  with  some  white.  Absolutely 
pure  red  or  green  or  violet  is  never  experienced,  and  so  can 
never  be  discerned  in  the  so-called  primaries  with  which 
we  have  to  deal :  the  latter  consequently  pass  for  pure. — 
The  reader  will  remember  how  an  overtone  can  only  be 
attended  to  in  the  midst  of  its  consorts  in  the  voice  of  a 
musical  instrument,  by  sounding  it  previously  alone.  The 
imagination,  being  then  full  of  it,  hears  the  like  of  it  in 
the  compound  tone. 

Non-isolable  elements   may  be   discriminated,  provided 


DISCRIMINATION.  251 

their  concomitants  change.  Very  few  elements  of  reality 
are  experienced  by  us  in  absolute  isolation.  The  most  that 
usually  happens  to  a  constituent  a  of  a  compound  phe- 
nomenon abed  is  that  its  strength  relatively  to  bed  varies 
from  a  maximum  to  a  minimum;  or  that  it  appears 
linked  with  other  qualities,  in  other  compounds,  as  aefg  or 
ahik.  Either  of  these  vicissitudes  in  the  mode  of  our 
experiencing  a  may,  under  favorable  circumstances,  lead  us 
to  feel  the  difference  between  it  and  its  concomitants,  and 
to  single  it  out — not  absolutely,  it  is  true,  but  approxi- 
mately— and  so  to  analyze  the  compound  of  which  it  is  a 
part.  The  act  of  singling  out  is  then  called  abstraction, 
and  the  element  disengaged  is  an  abstract. 

Fluctuation  in  a  quality's  intensity  is  a  less  efficient  aid 
to  our  abstracting  of  it  than  variety  in  the  combinations 
in  which  it  appears.  What  is  associated  now  with  one 
thing  and  now  with  another  tends  to  become  dissociated 
from  either,  and  to  grow  into  an  object  of  abstract  con- 
templation by  the  mind.  One  might  call  this  the  law  of 
dissociation  by  varying  concomitants.  The  practical  result 
of  this  law  is  that  a  mind  which  has  once  dissociated  and 
abstracted  a  character  by  its  means  can  analyze  it  out  of  a 
total  whenever  it  meets  with  it  again. 

Dr.  Martineau  gives  a  good  example  of  the  law :  "  When 
a  red  ivory  ball,  seen  for  the  first  time,  has  been  withdrawn, 
it  will  leave  a  mental  representation  of  itself,  in  which  all 
that  it  simultaneously  gave  us  will  indistinguishably  co- 
exist. Let  a  white  ball  succeed  to  it;  now,  and  not  efore, 
will  an  attribute  detach  itself,  and  the  color,  by  force  of 
contrast,  be  shaken  out  into  the  foreground.  Let  the 
white  ball  be  replaced  by  an  egg,  and  this  new  difference 
will  bring  the  form  into  notice  from  its  previous  slumber, 
and  thus  that  which  began  by  being  simply  an  object  cut 
out  from  the  surrounding  scene  becomes  for  us  first  a  red 
object,  then  a  red  round  object,  and  so  on." 

Why  the  repetition  of  the  character  in  combination  with 
different  wholes  will  cause  it  thus  to  break  up  its  adhesion 
with  any  one  of  them,  and  roll  out,  as  it  were,  alone  upon 


252  PSYCHO  LOOT. 

the  table  of  consciousness,  is  a  little  of  a  mystery,  but  one 
which  need  not  be  considered  here. 

Practice  improves  Discrimination. — Any  personal  or 
practical  interest  in  the  results  to  be  obtained  by  distin- 
guishing, makes  one's  wits  amazingly  sharp  to  detect  dif- 
ferences. And  long  training  and  practice  in  distinguish- 
ing has  the  same  effect  as  personal  interest.  Both  of  these 
agencies  give  to  small  amounts  of  objective  difference  the 
same  effectiveness  upon  the  mind  that,  under  other  cir- 
cumstances, only  large  ones  would  have. 

That  'practice  makes  perfect' is  notorious  in  the  field 
of  motor  accomplishments.  But  motor  accomplishments 
depend  in  part  on  sensory  discrimination.  Billiard-play- 
ing, rifle-shooting,  tight-rope-dancing  demand  the  most 
delicate  appreciation  of  minute  disparities  of  sensation,  as 
well  as  the  power  to  make  accurately  graduated  muscular 
response  thereto.  In  the  purely  sensorial  field  we  have 
the  well-known  virtuosity  displayed  by  the  professional 
buyers  and  testers  of  various  kinds  of  goods.  One  man 
will  distinguish  by  taste  between  the  upper  and  the  lower 
half  of  a  bottle  of  old  Madeira.  Another  will  recognize, 
by  feeling  the  flour  in  a  barrel,  whether  the  wheat  was 
grown  in  Iowa  or  Tennessee.  The  blind  deaf-mute,  Laura 
Bridgman,  so  improved  her  touch  as  to  recognize,  after  a 
year's  interval,  the  hand  of  a  person  who  once  had  shaken 
hers;  and  her  sister  in  misfortune,  Julia  Brace,  is  said  to 
have  been  employed  in  the  Hartford  Asylum  to  sort  the 
linen  of  its  multitudinous  inmates,  after  it  came  from  the 
wash,  by  her  wonderfully  educated  sense  of  smell. 

The  fact  is  so  familiar  that  few,  if  any,  psychologists 
have  even  recognized  it  as  needing  explanation.  They 
have  seemed  to  think  that  practice  must,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  improve  the  delicacy  of  discernment,  and  have 
let  uhe  matter  rest.  At  most  they  have  said,  "Attention* 
accounts  for  it;  we  attend  more  to  habitual  things,  and 
what  we  attend  to  we  perceive  more  minutely."  This 
answer,  though  true,  is  too  general;  but  we  can  say  noth- 
ing more  about  the  matter  here. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

ASSOCIATION. 

The  Order  of  our  Ideas. — After  discrimination,  associa- 
tion !  It  is  obvious  that  all  advance  in  knowledge  must 
consist  of  both  operations  ;  for  in  the  course  of  our  edu- 
cation, objects  at  first  appearing  as  wholes  are  analyzed 
into  parts,  and  objects  appearing  separately  are  brought 
together  and  appear  as  new  compound  wholes  to  the  mind. 
Analysis  and  synthesis  are  thus  the  incessantly  alternat- 
ing mental  activities,  a  stroke  of  the  one  preparing  the 
way  for  a  stroke  of  the  other,  much  as,  in  walking,  a  man's 
two  legs  are  alternately  brought  into  use,  both  being  indis- 
pensable for  any  orderly  advance. 

The  manner  in  which  trains  of  imagery  and  considera- 
tion follow  each  other  through  our  thinking,  the  restless 
flight  of  one  idea  before  the  next,  the  transitions  our  minds 
make  between  things  wide  as  the  poles  asunder,  transitions 
which  at  first  sight  startle  us  by  their  abruptness,  but 
which,  when  scrutinized  closely,  often  reveal  intermediating 
links  of  perfect  naturalness  and  propriety — all  this  magical, 
imponderable  streaming  has  from  time  immemorial  excited 
the  admiration  of  all  whose  attention  happened  to  be 
caught  by  its  omnipresent  mystery.  And  it  has  further- 
more challenged  the  race  of  philosophers  to  banish  some- 
thing of  the  mystery  by  formulating  the  process  in  simpler 
terms.  The  problem  which  the  philosophers  have  set 
themselves  is  that  of  ascertaining,  between  the  thoughts 
which  thus  appear  to  sprout  one  out  of  the  other,  pnnci- 
ples  of  connection  whereby  their  peculiar  succession  or 
coexistence  may  be  explained. 

But   immediately  an   ambiguity  arises:    which  sort   of 


254  PSYCHOLOGY. 

connection  is  meant  ?  connection  thong  h  I -of,  or  connection 
between  thoughts  ?  These  are  two  entirely  different  things, 
and  only  in  the  case  of  one  of  them  is  there  any  hope  of 
finding  '  principles.'  The  jungle  of  connections  thought  of 
can  never  be  formulated  simply.  Every  conceivable  con- 
nection may  be  thought  of — of  coexistence,  succession,  re 
eemblance,  contrast,  contradiction,  cause  and  effect,  means 
and  end,  genus  and  species,  part  and  whole,  substance  and 
property,  early  and  late,  large  and  small,  landlord  and 
tenant,  master  and  servant, — Heaven  knows  what,  for  the 
list  is  literally  inexhaustible.  The  only  simplification 
which  could  possibly  be  aimed  at  would  be  the  reduction 
of  the  relations  to  a  small  number  of  types,  like  those 
which  some  authors  call  the  '  categories  '  of  the  under- 
standing. According  as  we  followed  one  category  or  an- 
other we  should  sweep,  from  any  object  with  our  thought, 
in  this  way  or  in  that,  to  others.  Were  this  the  sort  of  con- 
nection sought  between  one  moment  of  our  thinking  and 
another,  our  chapter  might  end  here.  For  the  only  sum- 
mary description  of  these  categories  is  that  they  are  all 
thinkable  relations,  and  that  the  mind  proceeds  from  one 
object  to  another  by  some  intelligible  path. 

Is  it  determined  by  any  laws?  But  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
What  determines  the  particular  path  ?  Why  dof  we  at  a 
given  time  and  place  proceed  to  think  of  b  if  we  have  just 
thought  of  a,  and  at  another  time  and  place  why  do  we 
think,  not  of  b,  but  of  c  ?  Why  do  we  spend  years  strain- 
ing after  a  certain  scientific  or  practical  problem,  but  all  in 
vain — our  thought  unable  to  evoke  the  solution  we  desire? 
And  why,  some  day,  walking  in  the  street  with  our  atten- 
tion miles  away  from  that  quest,  does  the  answer  saunter 
into  our  minds  as  carelessly  as  if  it  had  never  been  called 
for — suggested,  possibly,  by  the  flowers  on  the  bonnet  of 
the  lady  in  front  of  us,  or  possibly  by  nothing  that  we 
can  discover  ? 

The  truth  must  be  admitted  that  thought  works  under 
etrange  conditions.     Pure  'reason'  is  only  one  out  of  a 


ASSOCIATION.  255 

thousand  possibilities  in  the  thinking  of  each  of  us.  Who 
can  count  all  the  silly  fancies,  the  grotesque  suppositions, 
the  utterly  irrelevant  reflections  he  makes  in  the  course  of 
a  day  ?  Who  can  swear  that  his  prejudices  and  irrational 
opinions  constitute  a  less  bulky  part  of  his  mental  furni- 
ture than  his  clarified  beliefs  ?  And  yet,  the  mode  of 
genesis  of  the  worthy  and  the  worthless  in  our  thinking 
seems  the  same. 

The  laws  are  cerebral  laws.  There  seem  to  be  mechanical , 
^conditions  on  which  thought  depends,  and  which,  to  say 
the  least,  determine  the  order  in  which  the  objects  for  her 
comparisons  and  selections  are  presented.  It  is  a  sug- 
gestive fact  that  Locke,  and  many  more  recent  Continental 
psychologists,  have  found  themselves  obliged  to  invoke  a 
mechanical  process  to  account  for  the  aberrations  of 
thought,  the  obstructive  prepossessions,  the  frustrations  of 
reason.  This  they  found  in  the  law  of  habit,  or  what  we 
now  call  association  by  contiguity.  But  it  never  occurred 
to  these  writers  that  a  process  which  could  go  the  length  of 
actually  producing  some  ideas  and  sequences  in  the  mind 
might  safely  be  trusted  to  produce  others  too;  and  that 
those  habitual  associations  which  further  thought  may  also 
come  from  the  same  mechanical  source  as  those  which 
hinder  it.  Hartley  accordingly  suggested  habit  as  a  suffi- 
cient explanation  of  the  sequence  of  our  thoughts,  and  in 
so  doing  planted  himself  squarely  upon  the  properly  causal 
aspect  of  the  problem,  and  sought  to  treat  both  rational 
and  irrational  associations  from  a  single  point  of  view. 
How  does  a  man  come,  after  having  the  thought  of  A.. 
to  have  the  thought  of  B  the  next  moment  ?  or  how  does 
he  come  to  think  A  and  B  always  together  ?  These  were 
the  phenomena  which  Hartley  undertook  to  explain  by 
cerebral  physiology.  I  believe  that  he  was,  in  essential 
respects,  on  the  right  track,  and  I  propose  simply  to  revise 
his  conclusions  by  the  aid  of  distinctions  which  he  did  not 
make. 

Objects  are  associated,  not  ideas.     We  shall  avoid  con- 


256  PSYCHOLOGY. 

fusion  if  we  consistently  speak  as  if  association,  so  far  as 
the  word  stands  for  an  effect,  were  between  things  thought 
of— as  if  it  were  things,  not  ideas,  which  are  associated 
in  the  mind.  We  shall  talk  of  the  association  of  objects, 
not  of  the  association  of  ideas.  And  so  far  as  association 
stands  for  a  cause,  it  is  between  processes  in  the  brain — 
it  is  these  which,  by  being  associated  in  certain  ways,  de- 
termine what  successive  objects  shall  be  thought. 

Tho  Elementary  Principle.— I  shall  now  try  to  show  that 
there  is  no  other  elementary  causal  law  of  association  than 
the  law  of  neural  habit,  All  the  materials  of  our  thought 
are  due  to  the  way  in  which  one  elementary  process  of  the 
cerebral  hemispheres  tends  to  excite  whatever  other  ele- 
mentary process  it  may  have  excited  at  any  former  time. 
The  number  of  elementary  processes  at  work,  however,  and 
the  nature  of  those  which  at  any  time  are  fully  effective  in 
rousing  the  others,  determine  the  character  of  the  total 
brain-action,  and,  as  a  consequence  of  this,  they  determine 
the  object  thought  of  at  the  time.  According  as  this 
resultant  object  is  one  thing  or  another,  we  call  it  a  pro- 
duct of  association  by  contiguity  or  01  association  by  simi- 
larity, or  contrast,  or  whatever  other  sorts  we  may  have 
recognized  as  ultimate.  Its  production,  however,  is,  in 
each  one  of  these  cases,  to  be  explained  by  a  merely  quan- 
titative variation  in  the  elementary  brain-processes  mo- 
mentarily at  work  under  the  law  of  habit. 

My  thesis,  stated  thus  briefly,  will  soon  become  more 
clear;  and  at  the  same  time  certain  disturbing  factors, 
which  cooperate  with  the  law  of  neural  habit,  will  come 
to  view. 

Let  us  then  assume  as  the  basis  of  all  our  subsequent 
reasoning  this  law:  When  two  elementary  brain-processes 
have  been  active  together  or  in  immediate  succession,  one  of 
them,  on  re-occur  ring,  tends  to  propagate  its  excitement 
into  the  other. 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  every  elementary  process  has 
unavoidably  found  itself  at  different  times  excited  in  con- 


ASSOCIATION.  257 

junction  with  many  other  processes.  Which  of  these 
others  it  shall  awaken  now  becomes  a  problem.  Shall  b  or 
c  be  aroused  next  by  the  present  a  ?  To  answer  this,  we 
must  make  a  further  postulate,  based  on  the  fact  of  ten- 
sion in  nerve-tissue,  and  on  the  fact  of  summation  of  ex- 
citements, each  incomplete  or  latent  in  itself,  into  an 
open  resultant  (see  p.  128).  The  process  b,  rather  than  c, 
will  awake,  if  in  addition  to  the  vibrating  tract  a  some 
other  tract  d  is  in  a  state  of  sub-excitement,  and  formerly 
was  excited  with  b  alone  and  not  with  a.  In  short,  Ave 
may  say: 

The  amount  of  activity  at  any  given  point  in  the  brain- 
cortex  is  the  sum  of  the  tendencies  of  all  other  points  to 
discharge  into  it,  such  tendencies  being  proportionate  (1) 
to  the  number  of  times  the  excitement  of  each  other  point 
•may  have  accompanied  that  of  the  point  in  question;  (2)  to 
the  intensity  of  such  excitements;  and  (3)  to  the  absence  of 
any  rival  point  functionally  disconnected  ivith  the  first 
point,  into  ivhich  the  discharges  might  be  diverted. 

Expressing  the  fundamental  law  in  this  most  compli- 
cated way  leads  to  the  greatest  ultimate  simplification. 
Let  us,  for  the  present,  only  trea£  of  spontaneous  trains  of 
thought  and  ideation,  such  as  occur  in  revery  or  musing. 
The  case  of  voluntary  thinking  toward  a  certain  end  shall 
come  up  later. 

Spontaneous  Trains  of  Thought. — Take,  to  fix  our  ideas, 
the  two  verses  from  '  Locksley  Hall ' : 

"  I,  the  heir  of  all  the  ages  in  the  foremost  files  of  time," 
and — 

"  For  I  doubt  not  through  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs." 

Why  is  it  that  when  we  recite  from  memory  one  of  these 
lines,  and  get  as  far  as  the  ages,  that  portion  of  the  other 
line  which  follows  and,  so  to  speak,  sprouts  out  of  the  ages 
does  not  also  sprout  out  of  our  memory  and  confuse  the 
sense  of  our  words?  Simply  because  the  word  that  fol- 
lows the  ages  has  its  brain-process  awakened  not  simply  by 


258  PSYCHOLOGY. 

the  brain-process  of  the  ages  alone,  bui  by  it  plus  the  braiL 
processes  of  all  the  words  preceding  the  ages.  The  word 
ages  at  its  moment  of  strongest  activity  would,  per  se,  in- 
diffeivntlv  discharge  into  either  'in'  or  'one.'  So  would 
the  previous  words  (whose  tension  is  momentarily  much 
less  strong  than  that  of  ages)  each  of  them  indifferently 
discharge  into  either  of  a  large  number  of  other  word* 
with  which  they  have  been  at  different  times  combined. 
But  when  the  processes  of  '7,  the  heir  of  all  the  ages,'  si- 
multaneously vibrate  in  the  brain,  the  last  one  of  them  in  a 
maximal,  the  others  in  a  fading,  phase  of  excitement,  then 
the  strongest  line  of  discharge  will  be  that  which  they  all 
alike  tend  to  take.  '  In  '  and  not  '  one  '  or  any  other  word 
will  be  the  next  to  awaken,  for  its  brain-process  has  previ- 
ously vibrated  in  unison  not  only  with  that  of  ages,  but  with 
that  of  all  those  other  words  whose  activity  is  dying  away. 
It  is  a  good  case  of  the  effectiveness  over  thought  of  what 
we  called  on  p.  168  a  'fringe.' 

But  if  some  one  of  these  preceding  words — '  heir,'  for 
example — had  an  intensely  strong  association  with  some 
brain-tracts  entirely  disjoined  in  experience  from  the  poem, 
of  '  Locksley  Hall ' — if  the  reciter,  for  instance,  were  trenv  .- 
lously  awaiting  the  opening  of  a  will  which  might  mi^ie 
him  a  millionaire — it  is  probable  that  the  path  of  discharge 
through  the  words  of  the  poem  would  be  suddenly  inter- 
rupted at  the  word  'heir.'  His  emotional  interest  in  that 
word  would  be  such  that  its  own  special  associations  would 
prevail  over  the  combined  ones  of  the  other  words.  He 
would,  as  we  say,  be  abruptly  reminded  of  his  personal 
situation,  and  the  poem  would  lapse  altogether  from  his 
thoughts. 

The  writer  of  these  pages  has  every  year  to  learn  the 
names  of  a  large  number  of  students  who  sit  in  alphabeti- 
cal order  in  a  lecture-room.  He'  finally  learns  to  call  them 
by  name,  as  they  sit  in  their  accustomed  places.  On  meet- 
ing one  in  the  street,  however,  early  in  the  year,  the  face 
hardly  ever  recalls  the  name,  but  it  may  recall  the  place  of 


ASSOCIA  TTON.  269 

its  owner  in  the  lecture-room,  his  neighbors'  faces,  and 
consequently  his  general  alphabetical  position :  and  then, 
usually  as  the  common  associate  of  all  these  combined 
data,  the  student's  name  surges  up  in  his  mind. 

A  father  wishes  to  show  to  some  guests  the  progress  of 
his  rather  dull  child  in  kindergarten-instruction.  Hold- 
ing the  knife  upright  on  the  table,  he  says,  "  What  do  you 
call  that,  my  boy  ?"  "  I  calls  it  a  knife,  I  does,"  is  the 
sturdy  reply,  from  which  the  child  cannot  be  induced  to 
swerve  by  any  alteration  in  the  form  of  question,  until  the 
father,  recollecting  that  in  the  kindergarten  a  pencil  was 
used  and  not  a  knife,  draws  a  long  one  from  his  pocket, 
holds  it  in  the  same  way,  and  then  gets  the  wished-for 
answer,  "  I  calls  it  vertical."  All  the  concomitants  of  the 
kindergarten  experience  had  to  recombine  their  effect  be- 
fore the  word  '  vertical '  could  be  reawakened. 

Total  Recall. — The  ideal  working  of  the  law  of  com- 
pound association,  as  Prof.  Bain  calls  it,  were  it  unmodi- 
fied by  any  extraneous  influence,  would  be  such  as  to  keep 
the  mind  in  a  perpetual  treadmill  of  concrete  reminiscences 
from  which  no  detail  could  be  omitted.  Suppose,  for 
example,  we  begin  by  thinking  of  a  certain  dinner-party. 
The  only  thing  which  all  the  components  of  the  dinner- 
party could  combine  to  recall  would  be  the  first  concrete 
occurrence  which  ensued  upon  it.  All  the  details  of  this 
occurrence  could  in  turn  only  combine  to  awaken  the  next 
following  occurrence,  and  so  on.  If  a,  b,  c,  d,  e,  for  in- 
stance, be  the  elementary  nerve-tracts  excited  by  the  last 
act  of  the  dinner-party,  call  this  act  A,  and  I,  m,  n,  o,  p  be 
those  of  walking  home  through  the  frosty  night,  which  we 
may  call  B,  then  the  thought  of  A  must  awaken  that  of  B, 
because  a,  b,  c,  d,  e  will  each  and  all  discharge  into  I 
through  the  paths  by  which  their  original  discharge  took 
place.  Similarly  they  will  discharge  into  m,  n,  o,  and  p; 
and  these  latter  tracts  will  also  each  reinforce  the  other's 
action  because,  in  the  experience  B,  they  have  alreadv 
vibrated  in  unison.     The  lines  in  Fig.  57  symbolize  the 


260 


PSYCnOLOOT. 


summation  of  discharges  into  each  of  the  components  of 
B,  and  the  consequent  strength  of  the  combination  of 
influences  by  which  B  in  its  totality  is  awakened. 

Hamilton  first  used  the  word  ' redintegration '  to  desig- 
nate all  association.  Such  processes  as  we  have  just  de- 
scribed might  in  an  emphatic  sense  be  termed  redintegra- 
tions, for  they  would  necessarily  lead,  if  unobstructed,  to 
the  reinstatement  in  thought  of  the  entire  content  of  large 
trains  of  past  experience.  From  this  complete  redintegra- 
tion there  could  be  no  escape  save  through  the  irruption  of 
some  new  and  strong  present  impression  of  the  senses,  or 
through  the  excessive  tendency  of  some  one  of  the  elemen- 
tary brain-tracts  to  discharge  independently  into  an  aber- 
rant quarter  of  the  brain.     Such  was  the  tendency  of  the 

A  Ji 


Fig 


word  'heir*  in  the  verse  from  'Locksley  Hall/  which  was 
our  first  example.  How  such  tendencies  are  constituted 
we  shall  have  soon  to  inquire  with  some  care.  Unless  they 
are  present,  the  panorama  of  the  past,  once  opened,  must 
unroll  itself  with  fatal  literality  to  the  end,  imless  some 
outward  sound,  sight,  or  touch  divert  the  current  of 
thought. 


ASSOCIATION.  261 

Let  us  call  this  process  impartial  redintegration,  or,  still 
better,  total  recall.  Whether  it  ever  occurs  in  an  abso- 
lutely complete  form  is  doubtful.  AVe  all  immediately 
recognize,  however,  that  in  some  minds  there  is  a  much 
greater  tendency  than  in  others  for  the  flow  of  thought  to 
take  this  form.  Those  insufferably  garrulous  old  women, 
those  dry  and  fanciless  beings  who  spare  you  no  detail, 
however  petty,  of  the  facts  they  are  recounting,  and  upon 
the  thread  of  whose  narrative  all  the  irrelevant  items 
cluster  as  pertinaciously  as  the  essential  ones,  the  slaves  of 
literal  fact,  the  stumblers  over  the  smallest  abrupt  step  in 
thought,  are  figures  known  to  all  of  us.  Comic  literature 
has  made  her  profit  out  of  them.  Juliet's  nurse  is  a 
classical  example.  George  Eliot's  village  characters  and 
some  of  Dickens's  minor  personages  supply  excellent  in- 
stances. 

Perhaps  as  successful  a  rendering  as  any  of  this  men- 
tal type  is  the  character  of  Miss  Bates  in  Miss  Austen's 
'  Emma.'     Hear  how  she  redintegrates : 

"'But  where  could  you  hear  it?'  cried  Miss  Bates. 
'  Where  could  you  possibly  hear  it,  Mr.  Knightley  ?  For 
it  is  not  five  minutes  since  I  received  Mrs.  Cole's  note — no, 
it  cannot  be  more  than  five — or  at  least  ten — for  I  had  got 
my  bonnet  and  spencer  on,  just  ready  to  come  out — I  was 
only  gone  down  to  speak  to  Patty  again  about  the  pork — 
Jane  was  standing  in  the  passage — were  not  you,  Jane  ? — 
for  my  mother  was  so  afraid  that  we  had  not  any  salting- 
pan  large  enough.  So  I  said  I  would  go  down  and  see, 
and  Jane  said :  "  Shall  I  go  down  instead  ?  for  I  think  you 
have  a  little  cold,  and  Patty  has  been  washing  the  kitchen." 
"  Oh,  my  dear,"  said  I — well,  and  just  then  came  the  note. 
A  Miss  Hawkins — that's  all  I  know — a  Miss  Hawkins,  of 
Bath.  But,  Mr.  Knightley,  how  could  you  possibly  have 
heard  it?  for  the  very  moment  Mr.  Cole  told  Mrs.  Cole  of 
it,  she  sat  down  and  wrote  to  me.     A  Miss  Hawkins — ' " 

Partial  Recall. — This  case  helps  us  to  understand  why  it 
js  that  the  ordinary  spontaneous  flow  of  our  ideas  does  not 


262  PSYCHOLOGY. 

follow  the  law  of  total  recall.  In  no  revival  of  a  past  ex- 
perience art1  all  the  items  of  our  thought  equally  operative 
in  determining  what  the  next  thought  .shall  be.  Always 
some  ingredient  is  prepotent  over  the  rest.  Its  special  sug- 
gestions or  associations  in  this  case  will  often  be  different 
from  those  which  it  has  in  common  with  the  whole  group 
of  items;  and  its  tendency  to  awaken  these  outlying  associ- 
ates will  deflect  the  path  of  our  revery.  Just  as  in  the 
original  sensible  experience  our  attention  focalized  itself 
upon  a  few  of  the  impressions  of  the  scene  before  us,  so 
here  in  the  reproduction  of  those  impressions  an  equal 
partiality  is  shown,  and  some  items  are  emphasized  above 
the  rest.  What  these  items  shall  be  is,  in  most  cases  of 
spontaneous  revery,  hard  to  determine  beforehand.  In 
subjective  terms  we  say  that  the  prepotent  items  are  those 
which  appeal  most  to  our  interest. 

Expressed  in  brain-terms,  the  law  of  interest  will  be: 
some  one  brain-process  is  ahoays  prepotent  above  its  con- 
comitants in  arousing  action  elsewhere. 

"Two  processes,"  says  Mr.  Hodgson,  "are  constantly 
going  on  in  redintegration.  The  one  a  process  of  corro- 
sion, melting,  decay;  the  other  a  process  of  renewing, 
arising,  becoming.  .  .  .  No  object  of  representation  re- 
mains long  before  consciousness  in  the  sani3  state,  but 
fades,  decays,  and  becomes  indistinct.  Those  parts  of  the 
object,  however,  which  possess  an  interest  resist  this  ten- 
dency to  gradual  decay  of  the  whole  object.  .  .  .  This 
inequality  in  the  object — some  parts,  the  uninteresting, 
submitting  to  decay;  others,  the  interesting  parts,  resisting 
it — when  it  haj3  continued  for  a  certain  time,  ends  in 
becoming  a  new  object." 

Only  where  the  interest  is  diffused  equally  over  all  the 
parts  is  this  law  departed  from.  It  will  be  least  obeyed 
by  those  minds  which  have  the  smallest  variety  and  intensity 
of  interests — those  who,  by  the  general  flatness  and  poverty 
of  their  aesthetic  nature,  are  kept  for  ever  rotating  amon« 
the  literal  sequences  of  their  local  and  personal  history. 


ASSOCIATION.  263 

Most  of  us,  howe.ver,  are  better  organized  than  this,  and 
our  musings  pursue  an  erratic  course,  swerving  continu- 
ally into  some  new  direction  traced  by  the  shifting  piny 
of  interest  as  it  ever  falls  on  some  partial  item  in  each 
complex  representation  that  is  evoked.  Thus  it  so  often 
conies  about  that  we  find  ourselves  thinking  at  two  nearly 
adjacent  moments  of  things  separated  by  the  whole  diam-4 
eter  of  space  and  time.  Not  till  we  carefully  recall  eacb 
step  of  our  cogitation  do  we  see  how  naturally  we  came  by 
Hodgson's  law  to  pass  from  one  to  the  other.  Thus,  for 
instance,  after  looking  at  my  clock  just  now  (1879),  I  found 
myself  thinking  of  a  recent  resolution  in  the  Senate  about 
our  legal-tender  notes.  The  clock  called  up  the  image  of 
the  man  who  had  repaired  its  gong.  He  suggested  the 
jewellers  shop  where  I  had  last  seen  him;  that  shop,  some 
shirt-studs  which  I  had  bought  there;  they,  the  value  of 
gold  and  its  recent  decline;  the  latter,  the  equal  value  of 
greenbacks,  and  this,  naturally,  the  question  of  how  long 
they  Avere  to  last,  and  of  the  Bayard  proposition.  Each  of 
these  images  offered  various  points  of  interest.  Those 
which  formed  the  turning-points  of  my  thought  are  easily 
assigned.  The  gong  was  momentarily  the  most  interesting 
nart  of  the  clock,  because,  from  having  begun  with  a  beau- 
tiful  tone,  it  had  become  discordant  and  aroused  disap- 
pointment. But  for  this  the  clock  might  have  suggested 
the  friend  who  gave  it  to  me,  or  any  one  of  a  thousand 
circumstances  connected  with  clocks.  The  jeweller's  shop 
suggested  the  studs,  because  they  alone  of  all  its  contents 
were  tinged  with  the  egoistic  interest  of  possession.  This 
interest  in  the  studs,  their  value,  made  me  single  out  the 
material  as  its  chief  source,  etc.,  to  the  end.  Every  reader 
who  will  arrest  himself  at  any  moment  and  say,  "  How 
came  I  to  be  thinking  of  just  this  ?"  will  be  sure  to  trace  a 
train  of  representations  linked  together  by  lines  of  conti- 
guity and  points  of  interest  inextricably  combined.  This 
is  the  ordinary  process  of  the  association  of  ideas  as  it 
spontaneously  goes  on  in  average  minds.     We  may  call  it, 


264  P8TCB0L00T. 

ordinary,  or  mixed,  association,  or,  if  we  like  better,  par- 
tial recall. 

Which  Associates  come  up,  in  Partial  Recall  ? — Can  we 
determine,  now,  when  u  certain  portion  of  the  going 
thought  has,  by  dint  of  its  interest,  become  so  prepotent 
as  to  make  its  own  exclusive  associates  the  dominant  fea- 
tures of  the  coming  thought — can  we,  I  say,  determine 
which  of  its  own  associates  shall  be  evoked?  For  they 
are  many.     As  Hodgson  says: 

"The  interesting  parts  of  the  decaying  object  are  free 
to  combine  again  with  any  objects  or  parts  of  objects  with 
which  at  any  time  they  have  been  combined  before.  All 
the  former  combinations  of  these  parts  may  come  back 
into  consciousness;  one  must,  but  which  will  ?" 

Mr.  Hodgson  replies: 

"There  can  be  but  one  answer:  that  which  has  been 
most  habitually  combined  with  them  before.  This  new 
object  begins  at  once  to  form  itself  in  consciousness,  and 
to  group  its  parts  round  the  part  still  remaining  from  the 
former  object;  part  after  part  comes  out  and  arranges 
itself  in  its  old  position;  but  scarcely  has  the  process 
begun,  when  the  original  law  of  interest  begins  to  operate 
on  this  new  formation,  seizes  on  the  interesting  parts  and 
impresses  them  on  the  attention  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
rest,  and  the  whole  process  is  repeated  again  with  endless 
variety.  I  venture  to  propose  this  as  a  complete  and  true 
account  of  the  whole  process  of  redintegration." 

In  restricting  the  discharge  from  the  interesting  item 
into  that  channel  which  is  simply  most  habitual  in  the 
sense  of  most  frequent,  Hodgson's  account  is  assuredly 
imperfect.  An  image  by  no  means  always  revives  its  most 
frequent  associate,  although  frequency  is  certainly  one  of 
the  most  potent  determinants  of  revival.  If  I  abruptly 
utter  the  word  swallow,  the  reader,  if  by  habit  an  orni- 
thologist, will  think  of  a  bird;  if  a  physiologist  or  a 
medical  specialist  in  throat-diseases,  he  will  think  of  deg- 
lutition.   If  I  say  date,  he  will,  if  a  fruit-merchant  or  an 


ASSOCIATION.  *2t)5 

Arabian  traveller,  think  of  the  produce  of  the  palm ;  if  an 
habitual  student  of  history,  figures  with  A.D.  or  B.C.  before 
them  will  rise  in  his  mind.  If  I  say  bed,  bath,  morning, 
his  own  daily  toilet  will  be  invincibly  suggested  by  the 
combined  names  of  three  of  its  habitual  associates.  But 
frequent  lines  of  transition  are  often  set  at  naught.  The 
sight  of  a  certain  book  has  most  frequently  awakened  in 
me  thoughts  of  the  opinions  therein  propounded.  The 
idea  of  suicide  has  never  been  connected  with  the  volume. 
But  a  moment  since,  as  my  eye  fell  upon  it,  suicide  was 
the  thought  that  flashed  into  my  mind.  Why  ?  Because 
but  yesterday  I  received  a  letter  informing  me  that  the 
author's  recent  death  was  an  act  of  self-destruction. 
Thoughts  tend,  then,  to  awaken  their  most  recent  as 
well  as  their  most  habitual  associates.  This  is  a  matter 
of  notorious  experience,  too  notorious,  in  fact,  to  need 
illustration.  If  we  have  seen  our  friend  this  morning, 
the  mention  of  his  name  now  recalls  the  circumstances  of 
that  interview,  rather  than  any  more  remote  details  con- 
cerning him.  If  Shakespeare's  plays  are  mentioned,  and 
we  were  last  night  reading  'Richard  11./  vestiges  of  that 
play  rather  than  of  'Hamlet'  or  'Othello'  float  through 
our  mind.  Excitement  of  peculiar  tracts,  or  peculiar 
modes  of  general  excitement  in  the  brain,  leave  a  sort  of 
tenderness  or  exalted  sensibility  behind  them  which  takes 
days  to  die  away.  As  long  as  it  lasts,  those  tracts  or 
those  modes  are  liable  to  have  their  activities  awakened 
by  causes  which  at  other  times  might  leave  them  in  re- 
pose. Hence,  recency  in  experience  is  a  prime  factor  in 
determining  revival  in  thought.* 

Vividness  in  an  original  experience  may  also  have  the 
same  effect  as  habit  or  recency  in  bringing  about  likeli- 

*  I  refer  to  a  recency  of  a  few  hours.  Mr.  Gal  ton  found  that  ex- 
periences from  boyhood  and  youth  were  more  likely  to  be  suggested 
by  words  seen  at  random  than  experiences  of  later  years.  See  his 
highly  interesting  account  of  experiments  in  his  Inquiries  into  Human 

Fruity,  pp.  m-m 


266  PSYCHOLOGY. 

hood  of  revival.  If  we  have  once  wicnesaed  an  execution, 
any  subsequent  conversation  or  reading  about  capital  pun- 
ishment will  almost  certainly  suggest  images  of  that  par- 
ticular scene.  Thus  it  is  that  events  lived  through  only 
once,  and  in  youth,  may  come  in  after-years,  by  reason  of 
their  exciting  quality  or  emotional  intensity,  to  serve  as 
types  or  instances  used  by  our  mind  to  illustrate  any  and 
every  occurring  topic  whose  interest  is  most  remotely 
pertinent  to  theirs.  If  a  man  in  his  boyhood  once  talked 
with  Napoleon,  any  mention  of  great  men  or  historical 
events,  battles  or  thrones,  or  the  whirligig  of  fortune,  or 
islands  in  the  ocean,  will  be  apt  to  draw  to  his  lips  the 
incidents  of  that  one  memorable  interview.  If  the  word 
tooth  now  suddenly  appears  on  the  page  before  the  reader's 
eye,  there  are  fifty  chances  out  of  a  hundred  that,  if  he 
gives  it  time  to  awaken  any  image,  it  will  be  an  image  of 
some  operation  of  dentistry  in  which  he  has  been  the 
sufferer.  Daily  he  has  touched  his  teeth  and  masticated 
with  them;  this  very  morning  he  brushed,  used,  and  picked 
them ;  but  the  rarer  and  remoter  associations  arise  more 
promptly  because  they  were  so  much  more  intense. 

A  fourth  factor  in  tracing  the  course  of  reproduction  is 
congruity  in  emotional  tone  between  the  reproduced  idea 
and  our  mood.  The  same  objects  do  not  recall  the  same 
associates  when  we  are  cheerful  as  when  we  are  melan- 
choly. Nothing,  in  fact,  is  more  striking  than  our  inability 
to  keep  up  trains  of  joyous  imagery  when  we  are  depressed 
in  spirits.  Storm,  darkness,  war,  images  of  disease,  pov- 
erty, perishing,  and  dread  afflict  unremittingly  the  imagi- 
nations of  melancholiacs.  And  those  of  sanguine  tem- 
perament, when  their  spirits  are  high,  find  it  impossible 
to  give  any  permanence  to  evil  forebodings  or  to  gloomy 
thoughts.  In  an  instant  the  train  of  association  dances 
off  to  flowers  and  sunshine,  and  images  of  spring  and  "hope. 
The  records  of  Arctic  or  African  travel  perused  in  one 
mood  awaken  no  thoughts  but  those  of  horror  at  the 
malignity  of  Nature;  read  at  another  time   they  suggest 


ASSOCIATION.  267 

only  enthusiastic  reflections  on  the  indomitable  power  and 
pluck  of  man.  Few  novels  so  overflow  with  joyous  animal 
spirits  as  '  The  Three  Guardsmen '  of  Dumas.  Yet  it  may 
awaken  in  the  mind  of  a  reader  depressed  with  sea-sickness 
(as  the  writer  can  personally  testify)  a  most  woful  con- 
sciousness of  the  cruelty  and  carnage  of  which  heroes  like 
Athos,  Porthos,  and  Aramis  make  themselves  guilty. 

Habit,  recency,  vividness,  and  emotional  congruity  are, 
then,  all  reasons  why  one  representation  rather  than  an- 
other should  be  awakened  by  the  interesting  portion  of  a 
departing  thought.  We  may  say  with  truth  that  in  the 
majority  of  cases  the  coming  representation  will  have  been 
either  habitual,  recent,  or  vivid,  and  tvill  be  congruous.  If 
all  these  qualities  unite  in  any  one  absent  associate,  we  may 
predict  almost  infallibly  that  that  associate  of  the  going 
object  will  form  an  important  ingredient  in  the  object 
which  comes  next.  In  spite  of  the  fact,  however,  that  the 
succession  of  representations  is  thus  redeemed  from  per- 
feet  indeterminism  and  limited  to  a  few  classes  whose 
characteristic  quality  is  fixed  by  the  nature  of  our  past 
experience,  it  must  still  be  confessed  that  an  immense 
number  of  terms  in  the  linked  chain  of  our  representations 
fall  outside  of  all  assignable  rule.  To  take  the  instance  of 
the  clock  given  on  page  263.  Why  did  the  jeweller's  shop 
suggest  the  shirt-studs  rather  than  a  chain  which  I  had 
bought  there  more  recently,  which  had  cost  more,  and 
whose  sentimental  associations  were  much  more  interest- 
ing ?  Any  reader's  experience  will  easily  furnish  similar 
instances.  So  we  must  admit  that  to  a  certain  extent,  even 
in  those  forms  of  ordinary  mixed  association  which  lie 
nearest  to  impartial  redintegration,  ivlnch  associate  of  the 
interesting  item  shall  emerge  must  be  called  largely  a 
matter  of  accident — accident,  that  is,  for  our  intelligence. 
No  doubt  it  is  determined  by  cerebral  causes,  but  they  are 
too  subtile  and  shifting  for  our  analysis. 

Focalized  Recall,  or  Association  by  Similarity. — In  partial 
or  mixed  association  we  have  all  along  supposed  the  inter- 


268  PSYCHOLOGY. 

eating  portion  of  the  disappearing  thought  to  be  of  consid- 
erable extent,  and  to  be  sufficiently  complex  to  constituto 
by  itself  a  concrete  object.     Sir  William  Hamilton  relates, 
for  instance,  that  after  thinking  of  Ben  Lomond  he  found 
himself  thinking  of  the  Prussian  system  of  education,  and 
discovered   that   the  links  of   association  were  a  German 
gentleman  whom  he  had  met  on  lien  Lomond,  Germany, 
etc.     The    interesting   part   of    Ben    Lomond    as    he    had 
experienced  it,  the  part  operative  in  determining  the  trail; 
of  his  ideas,  was  the  complex  image  of  a  particular  man. 
But  now  let  us  suppose  that  the  interested  attention  re- 
fines itself  still  further  and  accentuates  a  portion  of  the 
passing  object,  so  small  as  to  be  no  longer  the  image  of  a 
concrete  thing,  but  only  of  an  abstract  quality  or  property. 
Let  us  moreover  suppose  that  the  part  thus  accentuated 
persists  in  consciousness   (or,  in   cerebral   terms,  has   its 
brain-process   continue)    after   the   other   portions  of  the 
object   have   faded.     This  small  surviving  portion   will 
then  surround  itself  with  its  own  associates  after  the  fash- 
ion we  have  already  seen,  and  the  relation  between  the  new 
thought's  object  and  the  object  of  the  faded  thought  will 
be  a  relation  of  similarity.     The   pair  of   thoughts  will 
form  an  instance  of  what  is  called  'association  by  simi- 
larity.' 

The  similars  which  are  here  associated,  or  of  which  the 
first  is  followed  by  the  second  in  the  mind,  are  seen  to  be 
compounds.  Experience  proves  that  this  is  always  the  case. 
There  is  no  tendency  on  the  part  of  simple  '  ideas,'  attri- 
butes, or  qualities  to  remind  us  of  their  like.  The  thought 
of  one  shade  of  blue  does  not  summon  up  that  of  another 
shade  of  blue,  etc.,  unless  indeed  we  have  in  mind  some 
general  purpose  of  nomenclature  or  comparison  which  re- 
quires a  review  of  several  blue  tints. 

Now  two  compound  things  are  similar  when  some  one 
quality  or  group  of  qualities  is  shared  alike  by  both, 
although  as  regards  their  other  qualities  they  may  have 
nothing  in  common,    The  moon  is  similar  to  a  gas-jet,  it  is 


ASSOCIATION.  269 

also  similar  to  a  foot-ball;  but  a  gas-jet  and  a  foot-ball  are 
not  similar  to  each  other.  When  we  affirm  the  similarity 
of  two  compound  things,  we  should  always  say  in  what 
respect  it  obtains.  Moon  and  gas-jet  are  similar  in  respect 
of  luminosity,  and  nothing  else;  moon  and  foot-ball  in  re- 
spect of  rotundity,  and  nothing  else.  Foot-ball  and  gas-jet 
are  in  no  respect  similar — that  is,  they  possess  no  common 
point,  no  identical  attribute.  Similarity,  in  compounds, 
is  partial  identity.  When  the  same  attribute  appears 
in  two  phenomena,  though  it  be  their  only  common  prop- 
erty, the  two  phenomena  are  similar  in  so  far  forth.  To 
return  now  to  our  associated  representations.  If  the 
thought  of  the  moon  is  succeeded  by  the  thought  of  a 
foot-ball,  and  that  by  the  thought  of  one  of  Mr.  X's  rail- 
roads, it'  is  because  the  attribute  rotundity  in  the  moon 
broke  away  from  all  the  rest  and  surrounded  itself  with  an 
entirely  new  set  of  companions — elasticity,  leathery  inte- 
gument, swift  mobility  in  obedience  to  human  caprice,  etc.; 
and  because  the  last-named  attribute  in  the  foot-ball  in 
turn  broke  away  from  its  companions,  and,  itself  persist- 
ing, surrounded  itself  with  such  new  attributes  as  make 
up  the  notions  of  a  '  railroad  king/  of  a  rising  and  falling 
stock-market,  and  the  like. 

The  gradual  passage  from  total  to   focalized,  through 
what  we  have  called  ordinary  partial,  recall  may  be  sym- 


A     . _""_„.   _""_"    ~    ~   -   -  B 


v  '.'.v  -  -I     -     _      -   1-  -  "  ..    -  t  •   '    «    ,  , 


Fig.  58. 

bolized  by  diagrams.     Fig.  58  is  total,  Fig.  59  is  partial, 
and  Fig.  GO  focalized,  recall.     A  in  each  is  the  passing, 


J  70 


rsvc no ,.<>(;  r 


B  the  coming,  thought.  In  'total  recall,' all  parts  of  .  I  arc 
equally  operative  in  calling  up  /»'.  In  'partial  recall,' 
most  parts  of  .1  arc  inert.  The  part  .1/  alone  breaks  out 
and  awakens  /!,  In  similar  association  or  'focalized  re- 
call,' the  part  .1/  id  much  smaller  than  in  the  previous  case, 


^ia  59 


and  after  awakening  its  new  set  of  associates,  instead  of 
fading  out  itself,  it  continues  persistently  active  along  with 
them,  forming  an  identical  part  in  the  two  ideas,  and  mak- 
ing these,  pro  tanto,  resemble  each  other.* 


Fig  60 

Why  a  single  portion  of  the  passing  thought  should 
break  out  from  its  concert  with  the  rest  and  act,  as  we  say. 
on  its  own  hook,  why  the  other  parts  should  become  inert, 
are   mysteries   which  we  can  ascertain  but  not   explain. 

*  Miss  M.  W.  Calkins  (Philosophical  Review,  I.  389,  1892)  points 
out  that  the  persistent  feature  of  the  going  thought,  on  which  the 
association  in  cases  of  similarity  hinges,  is  by  no  means  always  so 
slight  as  to  warrant  the  term  'focalized.'  "If  the  sight  of  the 
whole  breakfast-room.be  followed  by  the  visual  image  of  yesterday's 


ASSOCIATION".  271 

Possibly  a  minuter  insight  into  the  laws  of  neural  action 
will  some  day  clear  the  matter  up  ;  possibly  neural  laws 
will  not  suffice,  and  we  shall  need  to  invoke  a  dynamic 
reaction  of  the  consciousness  itself.  But  into  this  we 
cannot  enter  now. 

Voluntary  Trains  of  Thought.— Hitherto  we  have  assumed 
the  process  of  suggestion  of  one  object  by  another  to  be 
spontaneous.  The  train  of  imagery  wanders  at  its  own 
sweet  will,  now  trudging  in  sober  grooves  of  habit,  now 
with  a  hop,  skip,  and  jump,  darting  across  the  whole  field 
of  time  and  space.  This  is  re  very,  or  musing;  but  great 
segments  of  the  flux  of  our  ideas  consist  of  something  very 
different  from  this.  They  are  guided  by  a  disticct  pur- 
pose or  conscious  interest;  and  the  course  of  our  Ideas  is 
then  called  voluntary. 

Physiologically  considered,  we  must  suppose  that  a  pur- 
pose means  the  persistent  activity  of  certain  rather  definite 
brain-processes  throughout  the  whole  course  of  thought. 
Our  most  usual  cogitations  are  not  pure  reveries,  absolute 
driftings,  but  revolve  about  some  central  interest  or  topic 
to  which  most  of  the  images  are  relevant,  and  towards 
which  we  return  promptly  after   occasional  digressions. 

breakfast-table,  with,  the  same  setting  and  in  the  same  surroundings, 
the  association  is  practically  total,"  and  yet  the  case  is  one  of  simi- 
larity. For  Miss  Calkins,  accordingly,  the  more  important  distinc- 
tion is  that  between  what  she  calls  desistent  and  persistent  association. 
In  '  desistent '  association  all  parts  of  the  going  thought  fade  out  and 
are  replaced.  In  '  persistent '  association  some  of  them  remain,  and 
form  a  bond  of  similarity  between  the  mind's  successive  objects;  but 
only  where  this  bond  is  extremely  delicate  (as  in  the  case  of  an 
abstract  relation  or  quality)  is  there  need  to  call  the  persistent  process 
'focalized.'  I  must  concede  the  justice  of  Miss  Calkins's  criticism, 
and  think  her  new  pair  of  terms  a  useful  contribution.  Wundt's 
division  of  associations  into  the  two  classes  of  external  and  internal 
is  congruent  with  Miss  Calkins's  division.  Things  associated  inter- 
nally must  have  some  element  in  common  ;  and  Miss  Calkms's  word 
'  persistent '  suggests  how  this  may  cerebrally  come  to  pass.'  '  Desist- 
ent,' on  the  other  hand,  suggests  the  process  by  which  the  successive 
ideas  become  external  to  each  other  or  preserve  no  inner  tie. 


272  PSYCHOLOGY 

This  interest  is  subserved  by  the  persistently  active  brain- 
tracts  we  have  supposed.  In  the  mixed  associations  which 
we  have  hitherto  studied,  the  parts  of  each  object  which 
form  the  pivots  on  which  our  thoughts  successively  turn 
have  their  interest  largely  determined  by  their  connection 
with  some  general  interest  which  for  the  time  has  seized 
upon  the  mind.  If  we  call  Z  the  brain-tract  of  general 
interest,  then,  if  the  object  aba  turns  up,  and  b  has  more 
associations  with  Z  than  have  either  a  or  c,  b  will  become 
the  object's  interesting,  pivotal  portion,  and  will  call  up 
its  own  associates  exclusively.  For  the  energy  of  b's  brain- 
tract  will  be  augmented  by  Z's  activity, — an  activity 
which,  from  lack  of  previous  connection  between  Z  and  a 
and  Z  and  c,  does  not  intluence  a  or  c.  If,  for  instance,  I 
think  of  Paris  whilst  I  am  hungry,  I  shall  not  improbably 
find  that  its  restaurants  have  become  the  pivot  of  my 
thought,  etc.,  etc. 

Problems.— But  in  the  theoretic  as  well  as  in  the  practi- 
cal life  there  are  interests  of  a  more  acute  sort,  taking  the 
form  of  definite  images  of  some  achievement  which  we  de- 
sire to  effect.  The  train  of  ideas  arising  under  the  influ- 
ence of  such  an  interest  constitutes  usually  the  thought  of 
the  means  by  which  the  end  shall  be  attained.  If  the  end 
by  its  simple  presence  does  not  instantaneously  suggest  the 
means,  the  search  for  the  latter  becomes  a  problem;  and 
the  discovery  of  the  means  forms  a  new  sort  of  end,  of  an 
jntirely  peculiar  nature — an  end,  namely,  which  we  intensely 
desire  before  we  have  attained  it,  but  of  the  nature  of 
which,  even  whilst  most  strongly  craving  it,  we  have  no 
distinct  imagination  whatever  (compare  pp.  241-2). 

The  same  thing  occurs  whenever  we  seek  to  recall  some- 
thing forgotten,  or  to  state  the  reason  for  a  judgment 
which  we  have  made  intuitively.  The  desire  strains  and 
presses  in  a  direction  which  it  feels  to  be  right, but  towards 
a  point  which  it  is  unable  to  see.  In  short,  the  absence  of 
an  item  is  a  determinant  of  our  representations  quite  as 
positive  as  its  presence,  can  ever  be.     The  gap  becomes  no 


ASSOCIATION.  273 

mere  void,  but  what  is  called  an  aching  void.  If  we  try  to 
explain  in  terms  of  brain-action  how  a  thought  which  only 
potentially  exists  can  yet  be  effective,  we  seem  driven  to 
believe  that  the  brain-tract  thereof  must  actually  be  excited, 
but  only  in  a  minimal  and  sub-conscious  way.  Try,  for 
instance,  to  symbolize  what  goes  on  in  a  man  who  is  rack 
ing  his  brains  to  remember  a  thought  which  occurred  to 
him  last  week.  The  associates  of  the  thought  are  there, 
many  of  them  at  least,  but  they  refuse  to  awaken  the 
thought  itself.  We  cannot  suppose  that  they  do  not  irra- 
diate at  all  into  its  brain-tract,  because  his  mind  quivers 
on  the  very  edge  of  its  recovery.  Its  actual  rhythm  sounds 
in  his  ears;  the  words  seem  on  the  imminent  point  of  fol- 
lowing, but  fail  (see  p.  165).  Now  the  only  difference 
between  the  effort  to  recall  things  forgotten  and  the  search 
after  the  means  to  a  given  end  is  that  the  latter  have  not, 
whilst  the  former  have,  already  formed  a  part  of  our  ex- 
perience. If  we  first  study  the  mode  of  recalling  a  thing 
forgotten,  we  can  take  up  with  better  understanding  the 
voluntary  quest  of  the  unknown. 

Their  Solution. — The  forgotten  thing  is  felt  by  us  as  a 
gap  in  the  midst  of  certain  other  things.  We  possess  a  dim 
idea  of  where  we  were  and  what  we  were  about  when  it  last 
occurred  to  us.  We  recollect  the  general  subject  to  which 
it  pertains.  But  all  these  details  refuse  to  shoot  together 
into  a  solid  whole,  for  the  lack  of  the  missing  thing,  so  we 
keep  running  over  them  in  our  mind,  dissatisfied,  craving 
something  more.  From  each  detail  there  radiate  lines  of 
association  forming  so  many  tentative  guesses.  Many  of 
these  are  immediately  seen  to  be  irrelevant,  are  therefore 
void  of  interest,  and  lapse  immediately  from  consciousness. 
Others  are  associated  with  the  other  details  present,  and 
with  the  missing  thought  as  well.  When  these  surge  up,  we 
have  a  peculiar  feeling  that  we  are  '  warm,'  as  the  children 
say  when  they  play  hide  and  seek ;  and  such  associates  as 
these  we  clutch  at  and  keep  before  the  attention.  Thus  we 
recollect  successively  that  when  we  last  were  considering  the 


274 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


matter  in  question  we  were  at  the  dinner-table;  then  that 
our  friend  J.  D.  was  there;  then  that  the  subject  talked 
about  was  so  and  so;  finally,  that  the  thought  came  apro- 
pos of  a  certain  anecdote,  and  then  that  it  had  something 
to  do  with  a  French  quotation.  Now  all  these  added  as- 
sociates arise  independently  of  the  will,  by  the  spontaneous 
processes  we  know  so  well.  All  that  the  will  does  is  to  em- 
phasize and  linger  over  those  which  seem  pertinent,  and  ig- 
nore the  rest.  Through  this  hovering  of  the  attention  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  desired  object,  the  accumulation 
of  associates  becomes  so  great  that  the  combined  tensions 
of  their  neural  processes  break  through  the  bar,  and  the 
nervous  wave  pours  into  the  tract  which  has  so  long  been 
awaiting  its  advent.     And  as  the  expectant,  sub-conscious 


Fig.  61. 

itching,  so  to  speak,  bursts  into  Uk  fulness  of  vivid  feeling, 
the  mind  finds  an  inexpressible  relief. 

The  whole  process  can  be  rudely  symbolized  in  a  dia- 
gram. Call  the  forgotten  thing  Z,  the  first  facts  with 
which  we  felt  it  was  related  a,  b,  and  c,  and  the  details 
finally  operative  in  calling  it  up  /,  m,  and  n.  Each  circle 
will  then  stand  for  the  brain-process  principally  concerned 
in  the  thought  of  the  fact  lettered  within  it.  The  activity 
in  Z  will  at  first  be  a  mere  tension;  but  as  the  activities  in 
a,  b,  and  c  little  by  little  irradiate  into  I,  m,  and  n,  and  as 


ASSOCIATION.  275 

all  these  processes  are  somehow  connected  with  Z,  their 
combined  irradiations  upon  Z,  represented  by  the  centripe- 
tal arrows,  succeed  in  rousing  Z  also  to  full  activity. 

Turn  now  to  the  case  of  finding  the  unknown  means  to 
a  distinctly  conceived  end.  The  end  here  stands  in  the 
place  of  a,  b,  c,  in  the  diagram.  It  is  the  starting-point  of 
the  irradiations  of  suggestion  ;  and  here,  as  in  that  case, 
what  the  voluntary  attention  does  is  only  to  dismiss  some 
of  the  suggestions  as  irrelevant,  and  hold  fast  to  others 
which  are  felt  to  be  more  pertinent — let  these  be  symbol- 
ized by  I,  m,  n.  These  latter  at  last  accumulate  sufficiently 
to  discharge  all  together  into  Z,  the  excitement  of  which 
process  is,  in  the  mental  sphere,  equivalent  to  the  solution 
of  our  problem.  The  only  difference  between  this  and 
the  previous  case  is  that  in  this  one  there  need  be  no  orig- 
inal sub-excitement  in  Z,  cooperating  from  the  very  first. 
[n  the  solving  of  a  problem,  all  that  we  are  aware  of  in 
advance  seems  to  be  its  relations.  It  must  be  a  cause,  or 
it  must  be  an  effect,  or  it  must  contain  an  attribute,  or 
it  must  be  a  means,  or  what  not.  We  know,  in  short,  a 
lot  about  it,  whilst  as  yet  we  have  no  acquaintance  with  it. 
Our  perception  that  one  of  the  objects  which  turn  up  is, 
at  last,  our  qucesitum,  is  due  to  our  recognition  that  its  re- 
lations are  identical  with  those  we  had  in  mind,  and  this 
may  be  a  rather  slow  act  of  judgment.  Every  one  knows 
that  an  object  may  be  for  some  time  present  to  his  mind 
before  its  relations  to  other  matters  are  perceived.  Just  so 
the  relations  may  be  there  before  the  object  is. 

From  the  guessing  of  newspaper  enigmas  to  the  plotting 
of  the  policy  of  an  empire  there  is  no  other  process  than 
this.  We  must  trust  to  the  laws  of  cerebral  nature  to 
present  us  spontaneously  with  the  appropriate  idea,  but  we 
must  know  it  for  the  right  one  when  it  comes. 

It  is  foreign  to  my  purpose  here  to  enter  into  any 
detailed  analysis  of  the  different  classes  of  mental  pursuit. 
In  a  scientific  research  we  get  perhaps  as  rich  an  example 
as  can  be  found.     The  inquirer  starts  with  a  fact  of  which 


276  PSYCHOLOGY. 

he  seeks  the  reason,  or  with  an  hypothesis  or  which  he 
seeks  the  proof.  In  either  case  he  keeps  turning  the 
matter  incessantly  in  his  mind  until,  by  the  arousal  of  asso- 
ciate upon  associate,  some  habitual,  some  similar,  one  arises 
which  he  recognizes  to  suit  his  need.  This,  however,  may 
take  years.  No  rules  can  be  given  by  which  the  investi- 
gator may  proceed  straight  to  his  result;  but  both  here 
and  in  the  case  of  reminiscence  the  accumulation  of  helps 
in  the  way  of  associations  may  advance  more  rapidly  by 
the  use  of  certain  routine  methods.  In  striving  to  recall  a 
thought,  for  example,  we  may  of  set  purpose  run  through 
the  successive,  classes  of  circumstance  with  which  it  may 
possibly  have  been  connected,  trusting  that  when  the  right 
member  of  the  class  has  turned  up  it  will  help  the  thought's 
revival.  Thus  we  may  run  through  all  the  places  in  which 
we  may  have  had  it.  We  may  run  through  the  persons 
whom  we  remember  to  have  oonversed  with,  or  we  may  call 
up  successively  all  the  books  we  have  lately  been  reading. 
If  we  are  trying  to  remember  a  person  we  may  run  through 
a  list  of  streets  or  of  professions.  Some  item  out  of  the 
lists  thus  methodically  gone  over  will  very  likely  be  asso- 
ciated with  the  fact  we  are  in  need  of,  and  may  suggest  it 
or  help  to  do  so.  And  yet  the  item  might  never  have  arisen 
without  such  systematic  procedure.  In  scientific  research 
this  accumulation  of  associates  has  been  methodized  by 
Mill  under  the  title  of  '  The  Four  Methods  of  Experi- 
mental Inquiry.'  By  the  '  method  of  agreement,'  by  that 
of  'difference,'  by  those  of  'residues'  and  'concomitant 
variations'  (which  cannot  here  be  more  nearly  defined),  we 
make  certain  lists  of  cases;  and  by  ruminating  these  lists 
in  our  minds  the  cause  we  seek  will  be  more  likely  to 
emerge.  But  the  final  stroke  of  discovery  is  only  prepared, 
not  effected,  by  them.  The  brain-tracts  must,  of  their  own 
accord,  shoot  the  right  way  at  last,  or  we  shall  still  grope 
in  darkness.  That  in  some  brains  the  tracts  do  shoot  the 
right  way  much  oftener  than  in  others,  and  that  we  cannot 
tell  why, — these  are  ultimate  facts  to  which  we  must  never 


AHBOVIATJOM.  277 

close  our  eyes.  Even  in  forming  our  lists  of  instances 
according  to  Mill's  methods,  we  are  at  the  mercy  of  the 
spontaneous  workings  of  Similarity  in  our  brain.  How 
are  a  number  of  facts,  resembling  the  one  whose  cause  we 
seek,  to  be  brought  together  in  a  iist  unless  one  will  rapidly 
suggest  another  through  association  by  similarity? 

Similarity  no  Elementary  Law. — Such  is  the  analysis  1 
propose,  first  of  the  three  main  types  of  spontaneous,  and 
then  of  voluntary,  trains  of  thought.  It  will  be  observed 
that  the  object  called  up  may  bear  any  logical  relation 
whatever  to  the  one  which  suggested  it.  The  law  requires 
only  that  one  condition  should  be  fulfilled.  The  fading 
object  must  be  due  to  a  brain-process  some  of  whose  ele- 
ments awaken  through  habit  some  of  the  elements  of  the 
brain-process  of  the  object  which  comes  to  view.  This 
awakening  is  the  causal  agency  in  the  kind  of  association 
called  Similarity,  as  in  any  other  sort.  The  similarity 
itself  betveen  the  objects  has  no  causal  agency  in  carry- 
ing us  from  one  to  the  other.  It  is  but  a  result — the  effect 
of  the  usual  causal  agent  when  this  happens  to  work  in  a 
certain  way.  Ordinary  writers  talk  as  if  the  similarity  of 
the  objects  were  itself  an  agent,  coordinate  with  habit,  and 
independent  of  it,  and  like  it  able  to  push  objects  before 
the  mind.  This  is  quite  unintelligible-  The  similarity  of 
two  things  does  not  exist  till  both  things  are  there — it  is 
meaningless  to  talk  of  it  as  an  agent  of  production  of  any- 
thing, whether  in  the  physical  or  the  psychical  realms.  It 
is  a  relation  which  the  mind  perceives  after  the  fact,  just 
as  it  may  perceive  the  relations  of  superiority,  of  distance, 
of  causality,  of  container  and  content,  of  substance  and 
accident,  or  of  contrast,  between  an  object  and  some  second 
object  which  the  associative  machinery  calls  up. 

Conclusion. — To  sum  up,  then,  we  see  that  the  difference 
between  the  three  kinds  of  association  reduces  itself  to  a 
simple  difference  in  the  amount  of  that  portion  of  the 
nerve-tract  supporting  the  going  thought  which  is  oper- 
ative in  calling  up  the  thought   which  comes.     But  the 


278  PSYCHOLOG  Y. 

modus  operandi  of  this  active  part  is  the  same,  be  it  large 
or  be  it  small.  The  items  constituting  the  coming  object 
waken  in  every  instance  because  their  nerve-tracts  once 
were  excited  continuously  with  those  of  the  going  object 
or  its  operative  part.  This  ultimate  physiological  law  of 
habit  among  the  neural  elements  is  what  runs  the  train. 
The  direction  of  its  course  and  the  form  of  its  transitions 
are  due  to  the  unknown  conditions  by  which  in  some 
brains  action  tends  to  focalize  itself  in  small  spots,  while 
in  others  it  fills  patiently  its  broad  bed.  What  these  dif- 
fering conditions  arc,  it  seems  impossible  to  guess.  "What- 
ever they  are,  they  are  what  separate  the  man  of  genius 
from  the  prosaic  creature  of  habit  and  routine  thinking. 
In  the  chapter  on  Reasoning  we  shall  need  to  recur  again 
to  this  point.  I  trust  that  the  student  will  now  feel 
that  the  way  to  a  deeper  understanding  of  the  order  of  our 
ideas  lies  in   the  direction   of  cerebral  physiology.     The 

mentary  process  of  revival  can  be  nothing  but  the  law 
of  habit.  Truly  the  day  is  distant  when  physiologists 
shall  actually  trace  from  cell-group  to  cell-group  the 
irradiations  which  we  have  hypothetical^  invoked.  Prob- 
ably it  will  never  arrive.  The  schematism  we  have  used 
is,  moreover,  taken  immediately  from  the  analysis  of 
objects  into  their  elementary  parts,  and  only  extended  by 
analogy  to  the  brain.  And  yet  it  is  only  as  incorporated 
in  the  brain  that  such  a  schematism  can  represent  any- 
thing causal.  This  is,  to  my  mind,  the  conclusive  reason 
for  saying  that  the  order  of  presentation  of  the  mind's 
materials  is  due  to  cerebral  physiology  alone. 

The  law  of  accidental  prepotency  of  certain  processes 
over  others  falls  also  within  the  sphere  of  cerebral  proba- 
bilities. Granting  such  instability  as  the  brain-tissue  re- 
quires, certain  points  must  always  discharge  more  quickly 
and  strongly  than  others;  and  this  prepotency  would  shift 
its  place  from  moment  to  moment  by  accidental  causes, 
giving  us  a  perfect  mechanical  diagram  of  the  capricious 


ASSOCIATION.  279 

play  of  similar  association  in  the  most  gifted  mind.  A 
study  of  dreams  confirms  this  view.  The  usual  abundance 
of  paths  of  irradiation  seems,  in  the  dormant  brain,  reduced. 
A  few  only  are  pervious,  and  the  most  fantastic  sequences 
occur  because  the  currents  run — '  like  sparks  in  burnt-up 
paper ' — wherever  the  nutrition  of  the  moment  creates  an 
opening,  but  nowhere  else. 

The  effects  of  interested  attention  and  volition  remain 
These  activities  seem  to  hold  fast  to  certain  elements  and, 
by  emphasizing  them  and  dwelling  on  them,  to  make  their 
associates  the  only  ones  which  are  evoked.  This  is  the 
point  at  which  an  anti-mechanical  psychology  must,  if  any- 
where, make  its  stand  in  dealing  with  association.  Every- 
thing else  is  pretty  certainly  due  to  cerebral  laws.  My 
own  opinion  on  the  question  of  active  attention  and  spirit- 
ual spontaneity  is  expressed  elsewhere  (see  p.  237).  But 
even  though  there  be  a  mental  spontaneity,  it  can  certainly 
not  create  ideas  or  summon  them  ex  abrupto.  Its  power  is 
limited  to  selecting  amongst  those  which  the  associative 
machinery  introduces.  If  it  can  emphasize,  reinforce,  or 
protract  for  half  a  second  either  one  of  these,  it  can  do  all 
that  the  most  eager  advocate  of  free  will  need  demand ;  for 
it  then  decides  the  direction  of  the  next  associations  by 
making  them  hinge  upon  the  emphasized  term;  and  deter- 
mining in  this  wise  the  course  of  the  man's  thinking,  it 
also  determines  his  acts. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 
THE    SENSE    OF    TIME. 

The  sensible  present  has  duration.  Let  any  one  try,  1 
will  not  say  to  arrest,  but  to  notice  or  attend  to,  the  present 
moment  of  time.  One  of  the  most  baffling  experiences 
occurs.  Where  is  it,  this  present?  It  has  melted  in  our 
grasp,  fled  ere  we  could  touch  it,  gone  in  the  instant  of 
becoming.     As  a  poet,  quoted  by  Mr.  Hodgson,  says, 

"  Le  moment  ou  je  parle  est  deja  loin  de  moi," 

and  it  is  only  as  entering  into  the  living  and  moving  organi- 
zation of  a  much  wider  tract  of  time  that  the  strict  present 
is  apprehended  at  all.  It  is,  in  fact,  an  altogether  ideal 
abstraction,  not  only  never  realized  in  sense,  but  probably 
never  even  conceived  of  by  those  unaccustomed  to  philo- 
sophic meditation.  Reflection  leads  us  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  must  exist,  but  that  it  does  exist  can  never  be  a  fact 
of  our  immediate  experience.  The  only  fact  of  our  imme- 
diate experience  is  what  has  been  well  called  'the  specious' 
present,  a  sort  of  saddle-back  of  time  with  a  certain  length 
of  its  own,  on  which  we  sit  perched,  and  from  which  we 
look  in  two  directions  into  time.  The  unit  of  composi- 
tion of  our  perception  of  time  is  a  duration,  with  a  bow 
and  a  stern,  as  it  were — a  rearward-  and  a  forward-looking 
end.  It  is  only  as  parts  of  this  duration-block  that  the 
relation  of  succession  of  one  end  to  the  other  is  perceived. 
We  do  not  first  feel  one  end  and  then  feel  the  other  after 
it,  and  from  the  perception  of  the  succession  infer  an 
interval  of  time  between,  but  we  seem  to  feel  the  interval 
of  time  as  a  whole,  with  its  two  ends  embedded  in  it.  Tho 
experience  is  from  the  outset  a  synthetic  datum,  not  a 


THE  SENSE  OF  TIME.  281 

iimple  one;  and  to  sensible  perception  its  elements  are 
inseparable,  although  attention  looking  back  may  easily 
decompose  the  experience,  and  distinguish  its  beginning 
from  its  end. 

The  moment  we  pass  beyond  a  very  few  seconds  our 
consciousness  of  duration  ceases  to  be  an  immediate 
perception  and  becomes  a  construction  more  or  less  sym- 
bolic. To  realize  even  an  hour,  we  must  count  'now! 
now!  now!  now!'  indefinitely.  Each  'now'  is  the  feel- 
ing of  a  separate  bit  of  time,  and  the  exact  sum  of  the 
bits  never  makes  a  clear  impression  on  our  mind.  The 
longest  hit  of  duration  which  we  can  apprehend  at  once  so 
as  to  discriminate  it  from  longer  and  shorter  bits  of  time 
would  seem  (from  experiments  made  for  another  purpose 
in  Wundt's  laboratory)  to  be  about  12  seconds.  The 
shortest  interval  which  we  can  feel  as  time  at  all  would 
seem  to  be  -^  of  a  second.  That  is,  Exner  recognized 
two  electric  sparks  to  be  successive  when  the  second  fol- 
lowed the  first  at  that  interval. 

We  have  no  sense  for  empty  time.  Let  one  sit  with 
closed  eyes  and,  abstracting  entirely  from  the  outer  world, 
attend  exclusively  to  the  passage  of  time,  like  one  who 
wakes,  as  the  poet  says,  "  to  hear  time  flowing  in  the 
middle  of  the  night,  and  all  things  moving  to  a  day  of 
doom."  There  seems  under  such  circumstances  as  these 
no  variety  in  the  material  content  of  our  thought,  and 
what  we  notice  appears,  if  anything,  to  be  the  pure  series 
of  durations  budding,  as  it  were,  and  growing  beneath  our 
indrawn  gaze.  Is  this  really  so  or  not  ?  The  question  is 
important;  for,  if  the  experience  be  what  it  roughly  seems, 
we  have  a  sort  of  special  sense  for  pure  time — a  sense  to 
wbich  empty  duration  is  an  adequate  stimulus;  while  if  it 
be  an  illusion,  it  must  be  that  our  perception  of  time's 
flight,  in  the  experiences  quoted,  is  due  to  the  filling  of 
the  time,  and  to  our  memory  of  a  content  which  it  had  a 
moment  previous,  and  which  we  feel  to  agree  or  disagree 
with  its  content  now. 


282  PS  YCIIOL  OOF. 

It  takes  but  a  small  exertion  of  introspection  to  show 
that  the  latter  alternative  is  the  true  one,  and  that  we  can 
no  more  perceive  a  duration  than  toe  can  perceive  an  exten- 
sion, devoid  of  <dl  sensible  content.  Just  as  with  closed 
eyes  Ave  see  a  dark  visual  field  in  which  a  curdling  play  of 
obscurest  luminosity  is  always  going  on;  so,  be  we  never 
so  abstracted  from  distinct  outward  impressions,  we  are 
always  inwardly  immersed  in  what  Wundt  has  somewhere 
called  the  twilight  of  our  general  consciousness.  Our 
heart-beats,  our  breathing,  the  pulses  of  our  attention, 
fragments  of  words  or  sentences  that  pass  through  our 
imagination,  are  what  people  this  dim  habitat.  Now,  all 
these  processes  are  rhythmical,  and  are  apprehended  by 
us,  as  they  occur,  in  their  totality;  the  breathing  and 
pulses  of  attention,  as  coherent  successions,  each  with  its 
rise  and  fall;  the  heart-beats  similarly,  only  relatively  far 
more  brief;  the  words  not  separately,  but  in  connected 
groups.  In  short,  empty  our  minds  as  we  may,  some  form 
of  changing  process  remains  for  us  to  feel,  and  cannot  be 
expelled.  And  along  with  the  sense  of  the  process  and 
its  rhythm  goes  the  sense  of  the  length  of  time  it  lasts. 
Awareness  of  change  is  thus  the  condition  on  which  our 
perception  of  time's  flow  depends;  but  there  exists  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  empty  time's  own  changes  are  suffi- 
cient for  the  awareness  of  change  to  be  aroused.  The 
change  must  be  of  some  concrete  sort. 

Appreciation  of  Longer  Durations. — In  the  experience  of 
watching  empty  time  flow — 'empty'  to  be  taken  hereafter 
in  the  relative  sense  just  set  forth — we  tell  it  off  in  pulses. 
We  say  'now!  now!  now!'  or  we  count  'more!  more! 
more!'  as  we  feel  it  bud.  This  composition  out  of  units 
of  duration  is  called  the  law  of  time's  discrete  flow.  The 
discreteness  is,  however,  merely  due  to  the  fact  that  our 
successive  acts  of  recognition  or  apperception  of  what  it  is 
are  discrete.  The  sensation  is  as  continuous  as  any  sen- 
sation can  be.  All  continuous  sensations  are  named  in 
beats.     We  notice  that  a  certain  finite  '  more '  of  them  is 


THE  SENSE  OF  TIME.  288 

passing  or  already  past.  To  adopt  Hodgson's  image,  the 
sensation  is  the  measuring-tape,  the  perception  the  divid- 
ing-engine which  stamps  its  length.  As  we  listen  to  a 
stea'dy  sound,  we  take  it  in  in  discrete  pulses  of  recog- 
nition, calling  it  successively  'the  same!  the  same!  the 
same ! '     The  case  stands  no  otherwise  with  time. 

After  a  small  number  of  beats  our  impression  of  the 
amount  we  have  told  off  becomes  quite  vague.  Our  only 
way  of  knowing  it  accurately  is  by  counting,  or  noticing 
the  clock,  or  through  some  other  symbolic  conception. 
When  the  times  exceed  hours  or  days,  the  conception  is 
absolutely  symbolic.  We  think  of  the  amount  we  mean 
either  solely  as  a  name,  or  by  running  over  a  few  salient 
dates  therein,  with  no  pretence  of  imagining  the  full 
durations  that  lie  between  them.  No  one  has  anything 
like  &  perception  of  the  greater  length  of  the  time  between 
now  and  the  first  century  than  of  that  between  now  and 
the  tenth.  To  an  historian,  it  is  true,  the  longer  interval 
will  sug'a'est  a  host  of  additional  dates  and  events,  and  so 
appear  a  more  multitudinous  thing.  And  for  the  same 
reason  most  people  will  think  they  directly  perceive  the 
length  of  the  past  fortnight  to  exceed  that  of  the  past 
week.  But  there  is  properly  no  comparative  time-intui- 
tion  in  these  cases  at  all.  It  is  but  dates  and  events  rep- 
resenting time,  their  abundance  symbolizing  its  length. 
I  am  sure  that  this  is  so,  even  where  the  times  compared 
are  no  more  than  an  hour  or  so  in  length.  It  is  the  same 
with  spaces  of  many  miles,  which  we  always  compare  with 
each  other  by  the  numbers  that  measure  them. 

From  this  we  pass  naturally  to  speak  of  certain  familiar 
variations  in  our  estimation  of  lengths  of  time. '  In  general, 
a  time  filled  tvith  varied  and  interesting  experiences  seems 
short  in  passing,  but  long  as  we  look  back.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  tract  of  time  empty  of  experiences  seems  long  in 
passing,  bv.-t  in  retrospect  short.  A  week  of  travel  and 
sight-seeing  may  subtend  an  angle  more  like  three  weeks 
in   the  memory;    and  a  month  of  sickness  yields  hardly 


284  PSYCHOLOGY. 

more  memories  than  a  day.  The  length  in  retrospect  de- 
pends obviously  on  the  multitudinousness  of  the  memories 
which  the  time  affords.  Many  objects,  events,  changes, 
many  subdivisions,  immediately  widen  the  view  as  we  rook 
back.  Emptiness,  monotony,  familiarity,  make  it  shrivel 
up. 

The  same  space  of  time  seems  shorter  as  we  groiv  older — 
that  is,  the  days,  the  months,  and  the  years  do  so;  whether 
the  hours  do  so  is  doubtful,  and  the  minutes  and  seconds 
to  all  appearance  remain  about  the  same.  An  old  man 
probably  does  not  feel  his  past  life  to  be  any  longer  than 
he  did  when  he  was  a  boy,  though  it  may  be  a  dozen  times 
as  long.  In  most  men  all  the  events  of  manhood's  years 
are  of  such  familiar  sorts  that  the  individual  impressions 
do  not  last.  At  the  same  time  more  and  more  of  the  earlier 
events  get  forgotten,  the  result  being  that  no  greater  mul- 
titude of  distinct  objects  remains  in  the  memory. 

So  much  for  the  apparent  shortening  of  tracts  of  time  in 
retrospect.  They  shorten  in  passing  whenever  we  are  so 
fully  occupied  with  their  content  as  not  to  note  the  actual 
time  itself.  A  day  full  of  excitement,  with  no  pause,  is 
said  to  pass  '  ere  we  know  it.'  On  the  contrary,  a  day  full 
of  waiting,  of  unsatisfied  desire  for  change,  will  seem  a 
small  eternity.  Tcedium,  ennui,  Langweile,  boredom,  are 
words  for  which,  probably,  every  language  known  to  man 
has  its  equivalent.  It  comes  about  whenever,  from  the 
relative  emptiness  of  content  of  a  tract  of  time,  we  grow 
attentive  to  the  passage  of  the  time  itself.  Expecting,  and 
being  ready  for,  a  new  impression  to  succeed ;  when  it  fails 
to  come,  we  get  an  empty  time  instead  of  it;  and  such  ex- 
periences, ceaselessly  renewed,  make  us  most  formidably 
aware  of  the  extent  of  the  mere  time  itself.  Close  your 
eyes  and  simply  wait  to  bear  somebody  tell  you  that  a 
minute  has  elapsed,  and  the  full  length  of  your  leisure  with 
it  seems  incredible.  You  engulf  yourself  into  its  bowels 
as  into  those  of  that  interminable  first  week  of  an  ocean 
voyage,  and  find  yourself  wondering  that  history  can  have 


THE  SENSE  OF  TIME.  285 

overcome  many  such  periods  in  its  course.  All  because 
you  attend  so  closely  to  the  mere  feeling  of  the  time  joer  se, 
and  because  your  attention  to  that  is  susceptible  of  such 
fine-grained  successive  subdivision.  The  odiousness  of  the 
whole  experience  comes  from  its  insipidity;  for  stimula- 
tion is  the  indispensable  requisite  for  pleasure  in  an  expe- 
rience, and  the  feeling  of  bare  time  is  the  least  stimulating 
experience  we  can  have.  The  sensation  of  tedium  is  a 
protest,  says  Volkmann,  against  the  entire  present. 

The  feeling  of  past  time  is  a  present  feeling.  In  reflect- 
ing on  the  modus  operandi  of  our  consciousness  of  time, 
we  are  at  first  tempted  to  suppose  it  the  easiest  thing  in 
the  world  to  understand.  Our  inner  states  succeed  each 
other.  They  know  themselves  as  they  are;  then  of  course, 
we  say,  they  must  know  their  own  succession.  But  this 
philosophy  is  too  crude;  for  between  the  mind's  own 
changes  being  successive,  and  knowing  their  oivn  succes- 
sion, lies  as  broad  a  chasm  as  between  the  object  and  sub- 
ject of  any  case  of  cognition  in  the  Avorld.  A  succession 
of  feelings,  in  and  of  itself,  is  not  a  feeling  of  succession. 
And  since,  to  our  successive  feelings,  a  feeling  of  their 
succession  is  added,  that  must  be  treated  as  an  additional 
fact  requiring  its  own  special  elucidation,  which  this  talk 
about  the  feelings  knowing  their  time-relations  as  a  matter 
of  course  leaves  all  untouched. 

If  we  represent  the  actual  time-stream  of  our  thinking 
by  an  horizontal  line,  the  thought  of  the  stream  or  of  any 
segment  of  its  length,  past,  present,  or  to  come,  might  be 
figured  in  a  perpendicular  raised  upon  the  horizontal  at  a 
certain  point.  The  length  of  this  perpendicular  stands  for 
a  certain  object  or  content,  which  in  this  case  is  the  time 
thought  of  at  the  actual  moment  of  the  stream  upon  which 
the  perpendicular  is  raised. 

There  is  thus  a  sort  of  perspective  projection  of  past 
objects  upon  present  consciousness,  similar  to  that  of  wide 
landscapes  upon  a  camera-screen. 

And  since  we  saw  a  while  ago  that  our  maximum  die- 


286  PSYCHOLOGY. 

tinct  perception  of  duration  hardly  covers  more  than  a  dozen 
seconds  (while  our  maximum  vague  perception  is  probably 
not  more  than  that  of  a  minute  or  so),  we  must  suppose  that 
this  amount  of  duration  is  pictured  fairly  steadily  in  each 

passing  instant  of  consciousness  by  virtue  of  some  fairly 
constant    feature  in  the  brain-process  to  which  the  con- 
sciousness is  tied.     This  feature  of  the  brain-process,  what- 
ever  it  be,  must  be  the  cause  of  our  perceiving  the  fact  of 
lime  at  all.    The  duration  thus  steadily  perceived  is'hardly 
more  than  the  'specious  present/  as  it  was  called  a  few 
pages  back.     Its  content  is  in  a  constant  flux,  events  dawn- 
ing into  its  forward  end  as  fast  as  they  fade  out  of  its  rear- 
ward one,  and  each  of  them  changing  its  time-coefficient 
from  '  not  yet,5  or  '  not  quite  yet/  to  'just  gone/  or  'gone,'  as 
it  passes  by.     Meanwhile,  the  specious  present,  the  intuited 
duration,  stands  permanent,  like  the  rainbow  on  the  water- 
fall, with  its  own  quality  unchanged  by  the  events  that 
stream  through  it.     Each  of  these,  as  it  slips  out,  retains 
the  power  of  being  reproduced;  and  when  reproduced,  is 
reproduced    with    the    duration   and    neighbors    which    it 
originally  had.     Please  observe,  however,  that  the  repro- 
duction of  an  event,  after  it  has  once  completely  dropped 
out  of  the  rearward  end  of  the  specious   present,  is  an 
entirely  different  psychic  fact  from  its  direct  perception  in 
the  specious  present  as  a  thing  immediately  past.     A  crea- 
ture might  be  entirely  devoid  of  reproductive  memory,  and 
yet  have  the  time-sense;  but  the  latter  would  be  limited, 
in  his  case,  to  the  few  seconds  immediately  passing  by.   In 
the  next  chapter,  assuming  the  sense  of  time  as  given,  we 
will  turn  to  the  analysis  of  what  happens  in  reproductive 
memory,  the  recall  of  dated  things. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

MEMORY. 

Analysis  of  the  Phenomenon  of  Memory. — Memory  proper, 
or  secondary  memory  as  it  might  be  styled,  is  the  knowl- 
edge of  a  former  state  of  mind  after  it  has  already  once 
dropped  from  consciousness;  or  rather  it  is  the  knowledge, 
of  an  event,  or  fact,  of  which  meantime  we  have  not  been 
thinking,  with  the  additional  consciousness  that  we  have 
thought  or  experienced  it  before. 

The  first  element  which  such  a  knowledge  involves  would 
seem  to  be  the  revival  in  the  mind  of  an  image  or  copy 
of  the  original  event.  And  it  is  an  assumption  made  by 
many  writers  that  such  revival  of  an  image  is  all  that  is 
needed  to  constitute  the  memory  of  the  original  occurrence. 
But  such  a  revival  is  obviously  not  a  memory,  whatever  else 
it  may  be;  it  is  simply  a  duplicate,  a  second  event,  having 
absolutely  no  connection  with  the. first  event  except  that  it 
happens  to  resemble  it.  The  clock  strikes  to-day;  it  struck 
yesterday;  and  may  strike  a  million  times  ere  it  wears  out. 
The  rain  pours  through  the  gutter  this  week;  it  did  so  last 
week;  and  will  do  so  in  scecula  scsculorum.  But  does  the 
present  clock-stroke  become  aware  of  the  past  ones,  or  the 
present  stream  recollect  the  past  stream,  because  they  re- 
peat and  resemble  them  ?  Assuredly  not.  And  let  it  not 
be  said  that  this  is  because  clock-strokes  and  gutters  are 
physical  and  not  psychical  objects;  for  psychical  objects 
(sensations,  for  example)  simply  recurring  in  successive 
editions  will  remember  each  other  on  that  account  no  more 
than  clock-strokes  do.  No  memory  is  involved  in  the 
mere  fact  of  recurrence.  The  successive  editions  of  a 
feeling  are  so  many  independent  events,  each  snug  in  its 


288  PSYCHOLOGY. 

own  skin.  Yesterday's  feeling  is  dead  and  buried;  and 
the  presence  of  to-day's  is  no  reason  why  it  should  resusci- 
tate along  with  to-day's.  A  farther  condition  is  required 
before  the  present  image  can  be  held  to  stand  for  a  past 
original. 

That  condition  is  that  the  fact  imaged  be  expressly 
referred  to  the  past,  thought  as  in  the  past.  But  how  can 
we  think  a  thing  as  in  the  past,  except  by  thinking  of  the 
past  together  with  the  thing,  and  of  the  relation  of  the 
two  ?  And  how  can  we  think  of  the  past  ?  In  the  chap- 
ter on  Time-perception  we  have  seen  that  our  intuitive  or 
immediate  consciousness  of  pastness  hardly  carries  us  more 
than  a  few  seconds  backward  of  the  present  instant  of 
time.  Remoter  dates  are  conceived,  not  perceived;  known 
symbolically  by  names,  such  as  Mast  week,'  '1850';  or 
thought  of  by  events  which  happened  in  them,  as  the  year 
in  which  we  attended  such  a  school,  or  met  with  such  a 
loss.  So  that  if  we  wish  to  think  of  a  particular  past 
epoch,  we  must  think  of  a  name  or  other  symbol,  or  else 
of  certain  concrete  events,  associated  therewithal.  Both 
must  be  thought  of,  to  think  the  past  epoch  adequately. 
And  to  'refer'  any  special  fact  to  the  past  epoch  is  to 
think  that  fact  with  the  names  and  events  which  charac- 
terize its  date,  to  think  it,  in  short,  with  a  lot  of  contigu- 
ous associates. 

But  even  this  would  not  be  memory.  Memory  requires 
more  than  mere  dating  of  a  fact  in  the  past.  It  must  be 
dated  in  my  past.  In  other  Avords,  I  must  think  that  I 
directly  experienced  its  occurrence.  It  must  have  that 
'warmth  and  intimacy'  which  were  so  often  spoken  of  in 
the  chapter  on  the  Self,  as  characterizing  all  experiences 
'  appropriated  '  by  the  thinker  as  his  own. 

A  general  feeling  of  the  past  direction  in  time,  then,  a 
particular  date  conceived  as  lying  along  that  direction,  and 
defined  by  its  name  or  phenomenal  contents,  an  event  im- 
agined as  located  therein,  and  owned  as  part  of  my  experi- 
ence,— such  are  the  elements  of  every  object  of  memory. 


MEMORY.  289 

Retention  and  Recall. — Such  being  the  phenomenon  of 
memory,  or  the  analysis  of  its  object,  can  we  see  how  it 
comes  to  pass  ?  can  we  lay  bare  its  causes  ? 

Its  complete  exercise  presupposes  two  things: 

1)  The  retention  of  the  remembered  fact;  and 

2)  Its  reminiscence,  recollection,  reproduction,  or  recall. 
Now  the  cause  both  of  retention  and  of  recollection  is  tho 

law  of  habit  hi  the  nervous  system,  working  as  it  does  in 
the  'association  of  ideas.' 

Association  explains  Recall. — Associationists  have  long 
explained  recollection  by  association.  James  Mill  gives  an 
account  of  it  which  I  am  unable  to  improve  upon,  unless 
it  might  be  by  translating  his  word  '  idea '  into  ' thing 
thought  of/  or  '  object/ 

"There  is,"  he  says,  "a  state  of  mind  familiar  to  all  men, 
in  which  we  are  said  to  remember.  In  this  state  it  is  cer- 
tain we  have  not  in  the  mind  the  idea  which  we  are  trying 
to  have  in  it.  How  is  it,  then,  that  we  proceed,  in.  the 
course  of  our  endeavor,  to  procure  its  introduction  into 
the  mind  ?  If  we  have  not  the  idea  itself,  we  have  certain 
ideas  connected  with  it.  We  run  over  those  ideas,  one 
after  another,  in  hopes  that  some  one  of  them  will  suggest 
the  idea  we  are  in  quest  of;  and  if  any  one  of  them  does, 
it  is  always  one  so  connected  with  it  as  to  call  it  up  in  the 
way  of  association.  I  meet  an  old  acquaintance,  whose 
name  I  do  not  remember,  and  wish  to  recollect.  I  run 
over  a  number  of  names,  in  hopes  that  some  of  them  may 
be  associated  with  the  idea  of  the  individual.  I  think  of 
all  the  circumstances  in  which  I  have  seen  him  engaged ; 
the  time  when  I  knew  him,  the  persons  along  with  whom 
I  knew  him,  the  things  he  did,  or  the  things  he  suffered ; 
and  if  I  chance  upon  any  idea  with  which  the  name  is 
associated,  then  immediately  I  have  the  recollection;  if 
not,  my  pursuit  of  it  is  vain.  There  is  another  set  of 
cases,  very  familiar,  but  affording  very  important  eyidence 
on  the  subject.  It  frequently  happens  that  there  are  mat- 
ters which  we  desire  not  to  forget.     What  is  the  contriv- 


290  PSYCHOLOGY. 

ance  to  which  we  have  recourse  for  preserving  the  memory 
— that  is,  for  making  sure  that  it  will  be  called  iuto  exist- 
ence when  it  is  our  wish  that  it  should  ?  All  men  invari- 
ably employ  the  same  expedient.  They  endeavor  to  form 
an  association  between  the  idea  of  the  thing  .to  be  remem- 
bered and  some  sensation,  or  some  idea,  which  they  know 
beforehand  will  occur  at  or  near  the  time  when  they  wish 
the  remembrance  to  be  in  their  minds.  If  this  association 
is  formed  and  the  association  or  idea  with  which  it  has 
been  formed  occurs,  the  sensation,  or  idea,  calls  up  the 
remembrance,  and  the  object  of  him  who  formed  the 
association  is  attained.  To  use  a  vulgar  instance:  a  man 
receives  a  commission  from  his  friend,  and,  that  he  may 
not  forget  it,  ties  a  knot  in  his  handkerchief.  How  is  this 
fact  to  be  explained  ?  First  of  all,  the  idea  of  the  commis- 
sion is  associated  with  the  making  of  the  knot.  Next,  the 
handkerchief  is  a  thing  which  it  is  known  beforehand  will 
be  frequently  seen,  and  of  course  at  no  great  distance  of 
time  from  the  occasion  on  which  the  memory  is  desired. 
The  handkerchief  being  seen,  the  knot  is  seen,  and  this 
sensation  recalls  the  idea  of  the  commission,  between  which 
and  itself  the  association  had  been  purposely  formed." 

In  short,  we  make  search  in  our  memory  for  a  forgotten 
idea,  just  as  we  rummage  our  house  for  a  lost  object.  In 
both  cases  Ave  visit  what  seems  to  us  the  probable  neigh- 
borhood of  that  which  we  miss.  "We  turn  over  the  things 
under  which,  or  within  which,  or  alongside  of  which,  it 
may  possibly  be;  and  if  it  lies  near  them,  it  soon  comes  to 
view.  But  these  matters,  in  the  case  of  a  mental  object 
sought,  are  nothing  but  its  associates.  The  machinery  of 
recall  is  thus  the  same  as  the  machinery  of  association,  and 
the  machinery  of  association,  as  we  know,  is  nothing  but  the 
elementary  law  of  habit  in  the  nerve-centres. 

It  also  explains  retention.  And  this  same  law  of  habit 
is  the  machinery  of  retention  also.  Retention  means  lia- 
bility to  recall,  and  it  means  nothing  more  than  such 
liability.     The  only  proof  of  there  being  retention  is  that 


MEMORY.  291 

recall  actually  takes  place.  The  retention  of  an  experience 
is,  in  short,  but  another  name  for  the  possibility  of  think- 
ing it  again,  or  the  tendency  to  think  it  again,  with  its  past 
surroundings.  Whatever  accidental  cue  may  turn  this 
tendency  into  an  actuality,  the  permanent  ground  of  the 
tendency  itself  lies  in  the  organized  neural  paths  by  which 
the  cue  calls  uj)  the  memorable  experience,  the  past  asso- 
ciates, the  sense  that  the  self  was  there,  the  belief  that  it 
all  really  happened,  etc.,  as  previously  described.  When 
the  recollection  is  of  the  '  ready '  sort,  the  resuscitation 
takes  place  the  instant  the  cue  arises;  when  it  is  slow,  re- 
suscitation comes  after  delay.  But  be  the  recall  prompt  or 
slow,  the  condition  which  makes  it  possible  at  all  (or,  in 
other  words,  the  'retention'  of  the  exjoerience)  is  neither 
more  nor  less  than  the  brain-paths  which  associate  the  ex- 
perience with  the  occasion  and  cue  of  the  recall.  When 
slumbering,  these  paths  are  the  condition  of  retention; 
when  active,  they  are  the  condition  of  recall. 

Brain-scheme. — A  simple  scheme  will  now  make  the 
whole  cause  of  memory  plain.  Let  n  be  a  past  event,  o 
its  '  setting '  (concomitants,  date, 
self  present,  warmth  and  inti- 
macy, etc.,  etc.,  as  already  set 
forth),  and  m  some  present 
thought  or  fact  which  may  appro- 
priately become  the  occasion  of 
its  recall.  Let  the  nerve-centres, 
active  in  the  thought  of  m,  n,  and 
o,  be  represented  by  M,  N,  and  0, 
respectively;    then   the    existence  FlG-  62- 

of  the  paths  symbolized  by  the  lines  between  M  and  JVand 
N  and  0  will  be  the  fact  indicated  by  the  phrase  '  retention 
of  the  event  n  in  the  memory/  and  the  excitement  of  the 
brain  along  these  paths  will  be  the  condition  of  the  event 
n'&  actual  recall.  The  retention  of  n,  it  will  be  observed,  is 
no  mysterious  storing  up  of  an  'idea'  in  an  unconscious 
state.     It  is  not  a  fact  at  the  mental  order  at  all.     It  is  a 


292  PSYCHOLOGY. 

purely  physical  phenomenon,  a  morphological  feature,  the 
presence  of  these  'paths/  namely,  in  the  finest  recesses 
of  the  brain's  tissue.  The  recall  or  recollection,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  a  psycho-physical  phenomenon,  with  both  a 
bodily  and  a  mental  side.  The  bodily  side  is  the  excite- 
ment of  the  paths  in  question;  the  mental  side  is  the  con- 
scious representation  of  the  oast  occurrence,  and  the  belief 
that  we  experienced  it  before. 

The  only  hypothesis,  in  short,  to  which  the  facts  of  in- 
ward experience  give  countenance  is  that  the  brain-tracts 
excited  by  the  event  proper,  and  those  excited  in  its  recall, 
are  in  part  different  from  each  other.  If  we  could 
revive  the  past  event  without  any  associates  we  should 
exclude  the  possibility  of  memory,  and  simply  dream  that 
we  were  undergoing  the  experience  as  if  for  the  first  time. 
Wherever,  in  fact,  the  recalled  event  does  appear  without 
a  definite  setting,  it  is  hard  to  distinguish  it  from  a  mere 
creation  of  fancy.  But  in  proportion  as  its  image  lingers 
and  recalls  associates  which  gradually  become  more  defi- 
nite, it  grows  more  and  more  distinctly  into  a  remembered 
thing.  For  example,  I  enter  a  friend's  room  and  see  on 
the  wall  a  painting.  At  first  I  have  the  strange,  wonder- 
ing consciousness,  '  Surely  I  have  seen  that  before,'  but 
when  or  how  does  not  become  clear.  There  only  clings  to 
the  picture  a  sort  of  penumbra  of  familiarity, — when  sud- 
denly I  exclaim :  "  I  have  it !  It  is  a  copy  of  part  of  one  of 
the  Fra  Angelicos  in  the  Florentine  Academy — I  recollect 
it  there."  Only  when  the  image  of  the  Academy  arises 
does  the  picture  become  remembered,  as  well  as  seen. 

The  Conditions  of  Goodness  in  Memory. — The  remem- 
bered fact  being  n,  then,  the  path  N — 0  is  what  arouses  for 
n  its  setting  when  it  is  recalled,  and  makes  it  other  than  a 
mere  imagination.  The  path  M — N,  on  the  other  hand, 
gives  the  cue  or  occasion  of  its  being  recalled  at  all. 
Memory  being  thus  altogether  conditioned  on  brain-paths, 
its  excellence  in  a  given  individual  will  depend  partly  on 
the  number  and  partly  on  the  persistence  of  these  paths. 


MEMORY.  293 

The  persistence  or  permanence  of  the  paths  is  a  physi- 
ological property  of  the  brain-tissue  of  the  individual, 
whilst  their  number  is  altogether  due  to  the  facts  of  his 
mental  experience.  Let  the  quality  of  permanence  in  the 
paths  be  called  the  native  tenacity,  or  physiological  reten- 
tiveness. This  tenacity  differs  enormously  from  infancy 
to  old  age,  and  from  one  person  to  another.  Some  minds 
are  like  wax  under  a  seal — no  impression,  however  dis- 
connected with  others,  is  wiped  out.  Others,  like  a  jelly, 
vibrate  to  every  touch,  but  under  usual  conditions  retain 
no  permanent  mark.  These  latter  minds,  before  they  can 
recollect  a  fact,  must  weave  it  into  their  permanent  stores 
of  knowledge.  They  have  no  desultory  memory.  Those 
persons,  on  the  contrary  who  retain  names,  dates  and  ad- 
dresses, anecdotes,  gossip,  poetry,  quotations,  and  all  sorts 
of  miscellaneous  facts,  without  an  effort,  have  desultory 
memory  in  a  high  degree,  and  certainly  owe  it  to  the  un- 
usual tenacity  of  their  brain-substance  for  any  path  once 
formed  therein.  No  one  probably  was  ever  effective  on  a 
voluminous  scale  without  a  high  degree  of  this  physiologi- 
cal retentiveness.  In  the  practical  as  in  the  theoretic  life, 
the  man  whose  acquisitions  stick  is  the  man  who  is  always 
achieving  and  advancing,  whilst  his  neighbors,  spending 
most  of  their  time  in  relearning  what  they  once  knew  but 
have  forgotten,  simply  hold  their  own.  A  Charlemagne,  a 
Luther,  a  Leibnitz,  a  Walter  Scott,  any  example,  in  short, 
of  your  quarto  or  folio  editions  of  mankind,  must  needs 
have  amazing  retentiveness  of  the  purely  physiological  sort. 
Men  without  this  retentiveness  may  excel  in  the  quality 
of  their  work  at  this  point  or  at  that,  but  will  never  do 
such  mighty  sums  of  it,  or  be  influential  contemporaneously 
on  such  a  scale. 

But  there  comes  a  time  of  life  for  all  of  us  when  we  can 
do  no  more  than  hold  our  own  in  the  way  of  acquisitions, 
when  the  old  paths  fade  as  fast  as  the  new  ones  form  in  our 
brain,  and  when  we  forget  in  a  week  quite  as  much  as  we 
can  learn  in  the  same  space  of  time.     This  equilibrium  may 


294  PSYCHOLOGY, 

last  many,  many  years.  In  extreme  old  age  it  is  upset  in 
the  reverse  direction,  and  forgetting  prevails  over  acquisi- 
tion, or  rather  there  is  no  acquisition.     Brain-paths  are  so 

transient  that  in  the  course  of  a  few  minutes  of  conversa- 
tion the  same  question  is  asked  and  its  answer  forgotten 
half  a  dozen  times.  Then  the  superior  tenacity  of  the 
paths  formed  in  childhood  becomes  manifest:  the  dotard 
will  retrace  the  facts  of  his  earlier  years  after  he  has  lost 
all  those  of  later  date. 

So  much  for  the  permanence  of  the  paths.     Now  for 
their  number. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  more  there  are  of  such  paths  as 
M — N  in  the  brain,  and  the  more  of  such  possible1  cues  or 
01  i  asions  for  the  recall  of  n  in  the  mind,  the  prompter  and 
surer,  on  the  whole,  the  memory  of  n  will  be,  the  more 
frequently  one  will  be  reminded  of  it,  the  more  avenues  of 
approach  to  it  one  will  possess.  In  mental  terms,  the  more 
other  facts  a  fact  is  associate!  with  in  the  mind,  the  better 
possession  of  it  our  memory  retains.  Each  of  its  associates 
bceomes  a  hook  to  which  it  hangs,  a  means  to  fish  it  up 
by  when  sunk  beneath  the  surface.  Together,  they  form  a 
network  of  attachments  by  which  it  is  woven  into  the 
entire  tissue  of  our  thought.  The  'secret  of  a  good  mem- 
ory' is  thus  the  secret  of  forming  diverse  and  multiple 
associations  with  every  fact  we  care  to  retain.  But  this 
forming  of  associations  with  a  fact,  what  is  it  but  thinking 
about  the  fact  as  much  as  possible?  Briefly,  then,  of  two 
men  with  the  same  outward  experiences  and  the  same 
amount  of  mere  native  tenacity,  the  one  ivho  thinks  over 
his  experiences  most,  and  weaves  them  into  systematic  rela- 
tions with  eacli  other,  will  he  the  one  with  the  best  memory. 
We  see  examples  of  this  on  every  hand.  Most  men  have  a 
good  memory  for  facts  connected  with  their  own  pursuits. 
The  college  athlete  who  remains  a  dunce  at  his  books 
will  astonish  you  by  his  knowledge  of  men's  'records' in 
various  feats  and  games,  and  will  be  a  walking  dictionary 
of  sporting  statistics.     The  reason  is  that  he  is  constantly 


MEMORY.  295 

going  over  these  things  in  his  mind,  and  comparing  and 
making  series  of  them.  They  form  for  him  not  so  many 
odd  facts,  but  a  concept-system — so  they  stick.  So  the 
merchant  remembers  prices,  the  politician  other  politicians' 
speeches  and  votes,  with  a  copiousness  which  amazes  out- 
siders, but  which  the  amount  of  thinking  they  bestow  on 
these  subjects  easily  explains.  The  great  memory  for  facts 
which  a  Darwin  and  a  Spencer  reveal  in  their  books  is  not 
incompatible  with  the  possession  on  their  part  of  a  brain 
with  only  a  middling  degree  of  physiological  retentiveness. 
Let  a  man  early  in  life  set  himself  the  task  of  verifying 
such  a  theory  as  that  of  evolution,  and  facts  will  soon 
cluster  and  cling  to  him  like  grapes  to  their  stem.  Their 
relations  to  the  theory  will  hold  them  fast;  and  the  more 
of  these  the  mind  is  able  to  discern,  the  greater  the  erudi- 
tion will  become.  Meanwhile  the  theorist  may  have  little, 
if  any,  desultory  memory.  Unutilizable  facts  may  be 
unnoted  by  him  and  forgotten  as  soon  as  heard.  An 
ignorance  almost  as  encyclopaedic  as  his  erudition  may  co- 
exist with  the  latter,  and  hide,  as  it  were,  in  the  interstices 
of  its  web.  Those  who  have  had  much  to  do  with  scholars 
and  savants  will  readily  think  of  examples  of  the  class  of 
mind  I  mean. 

In  a  system,  every  fact  is  connected  with  every  other  by 
some  thought-relation.  The  consequence  is  that  every  fact 
is  retained  by  the  combined  suggestive  power  of  all  the 
other  facts  in  the  system,  and  forgetfulness  is  well-nigh 
impossible. 

The  reason  why  cramming  is  such  a  bad  mode  of  study 
is  now  made  clear.  I  mean  by  cramming  that  way  of  pre- 
paring for  examinations  by  committing  '  points '  to  memory 
during  a  few  hours  or  days  of  intense  application  imme- 
diately preceding  the  final  ordeal,  little  or  no  work  having 
been  performed  during  the  previous  course  of  the  term. 
Things  learned  thus  in  a  few  hours,  on  one  occasion,  for 
one  purpose,  cannot  possibly  have  formed  many  associa- 
tions with  other  things  in  the  mind.     Their  brain-processes 


206  PSYCHOLOGY. 

are  led  into  by  few  paths,  and  are  relatively  little  liable  to  be 
awakened  again.  Speedy  oblivion  is  the  almost  inevitable 
fate  of  all  that  is  committed  to  memory  in  this  simple  way. 
Whereas,  on  the  contrary,  the  same  materials  taken  in 
gradually,  day  after  day,  recurring  in  different  contexts, 
considered  in  various  relations,  associated  with  other  exter- 
nal incidents,  and  repeatedly  reflected  on,  grow  into  such  a 
system,  form  such  connections  with  the  rest  of  the  mind's 
fabric,  lie  open  to  so  many  paths  of  approach,  that  they 
remain  permanent  possessions.  This  is  the  intellectual 
reason  why  habits  of  continuous  application  should  be 
enforced  in  educational  establishments.  Of  course  there 
is  no  moral  turpitude  in  cramming.  Did  it  lead  to  the 
desired  end  of  secure  learning,  it  were  infinitely  the  best 
method  of  study.  But  it  does  not;  and  students  them- 
selves should  understand  the  reason  why. 

One's  native  retentiveness  is  unchangeable.  It  will  now 
appear  clear  that  all  improvement  of  the  memory  lies  in  the 
line  of  elaborating  the  associates  of  each  of  the  several 
things  to  be  remembered.  No  amount  of  culture  ivould 
seem  capable  of  modifying  a  man's  general  retentiveness. 
This  is  a  physiological  quality,  given  once  for  all  with  his 
organization,  and  which  he  can  never  hope  to  change.  It 
differs  no  doubt  in  disease  and  health;  and  it  is  a  fact  of 
observation  that  it  is  better  in  fresh  and  vigorous  hours 
than  when  we  are  fagged  or  ill.  We  may  say,  then,  that  a 
man's  native  tenacity  will  fluctuate  somewhat  with  his 
hygiene,  and  that  whatever  is  good  for  his  tone  of  health 
will  also  be  good  for  his  memory.  We  may  even  say  that 
whatever  amount  of  intellectual  exercise  is  bracing  to  the 
general  tone  and  nutrition  of  the  brain  will  also  be  profit- 
able to  the  general  retentiveness.  But  more  than  this  we 
cannot  say;  and  this,  it  is  obvious,  is  far  less  than  most 
people  believe. 

It  is,  in  fact,  commonly  thought  that  certain  exercises, 
systematically  repeated,  will  strengthen,  not  only  a  man's 
remembrance  of  the  particular  facts  used  in  the  exercises, 


MEMORY.  297 

but  his  faculty  for  remembering  facts  at  large.  And  a 
plausible  case  is  always  made  out  by  saying  that  practice  in 
learning  words  by  heart  makes  it  easier  to  learn  new  words 
in  the  same  way.  If  this  be  true,  then  what  I  have  just 
said  is  false,  and  the  whole  doctrine  of  memory  as  due  to 
'paths'  must  be  revised.  But  I  am  disposed  to  think  the 
alleged  fact  untrue.  I  have  carefully  questioned  several 
mature  actors  on  the  point,  and  all  have  denied  that  the 
practice  of  learning  parts  has  made  any  such  difference  as 
is  alleged.  What  it  has  done  for  them  is  to  improve  their 
power  of  studying  a  part  systematically.  Their  mind  is 
now  full  of  precedents  in  the  way  of  intonation,  emphasis, 
gesticulation;  the  new  words  awaken  distinct  suggestions 
and  decisions;  are  caught  up,  in  fact,  into  a  preexisting 
network,  like  the  merchant's  prices,  or  the  athlete's  store 
of  l  records,'  and  are  recollected  easier,  although  the  mere 
native  tenacity  is  not  a  whit  improved,  and  is  usually,  in 
fact,  impaired  by  age.  It  is  a  case  of  better  remembering 
by  better  thinking.  Similarly  when  schoolboys  improve 
by  practice  in  ease  of  learning  by  heart,  the  improvement 
will,  I  am  sure,  be  always  found  to  reside  in  the  mode  of 
study  of  the  particular  piece  (due  to  the  greater  interest, 
the  greater  suggestiveness,  the  generic  similarity  with 
other  pieces,  the  more  sustained  attention,  etc.,  etc.),  and 
not  at  all  to  any  enhancement  of  the  brute  retentive  power. 

The  error  I  speak  of  pervades  an  otherwise  useful  and 
judicious  book,  '  How  to  Strengthen  the  Memory,'  by  Dr. 
M.  C.  Holbrook  of  New  York.  The  author  fails  to  distin- 
guish between  the  general  physiological  retentiveness  and 
the  retention  of  particular  things,  and  talks  as  if  both 
must  be  benefited  by  the  same  means. 

"I  am  now  treating,"  he  says,  "a  case  of  loss  of  memory 
in  a  person  advanced  in  years,  who  did  not  know  that  his 
memory  had  failed  most  remarkably  till  I  told  him  of  it. 
He  is  making  vigorous  efforts  to  bring  it  back  again,  and 
with  partial  success.  The  method  pursued  is  to  spend  two 
hours  daily,  one  in  the  morning  and  one  in  the  evening,  in 


298  PSYCHOLOGY. 

exercising  this  faculty.  The  patient  is  instructed  to  give 
the  closest  attention  to  all  that  he  learns,  so  that  it  shall 
be  impressed  on  his  mind  clearly,  lie  is  asked  to  recall 
every  evening  all  the  facts  and  experiences  of  the  day,  and 
again  the  next  morning.  Every  name  heard  is  written 
down  and  impressed  on  his  mind  clearly,  and  an  effort 
made  to  recall  it  at  intervals.  Ten  names  from  among 
public  men  are  ordered  to  be  committed  to  memory  every 
week.  A  verse  of  poetry  is  to  be  learned,  also  a  verse  from 
the  Bible,  daily.  He  is  asked  to  remember  the  number  of 
the  page  in  any  book  where  any  interesting  fact  is  recorded. 
These  and  other  methods  are  slowly  resuscitating  a  failing 
memory." 

I  find  it  very  hard  to  believe  that  the  memory  of  the 
poor  old  gentleman  is  a  bit  the  better  for  all  this  torture 
except  in  respect  of  the  particular  facts  thus  wrought  into 
it,  and  other  matters  that  may  have  been  connected  there- 
withal. 

Improving  the  Memory. — All  improvement  of  memory 
consists,  then,  in  the  improvement  of  one's  habitual  methods 
of  recording  facts.  Methods  have  been  divided  into  the 
mechanical,  the  ingenious,  and  the  judicious. 

The  mechanical  methods  consist  in  the  intensification, 
prolongation,  and  repetition  of  the  impression  to  be  re- 
membered. The  modern  method  of  teaching  children  to 
read  by  blackboard  work,  in  which  each  word  is  impressed 
by  the  fourfold  channel  of  eye,  ear,  voice,  and  hand,  is  an 
example  of  an  improved  mechanical  method  of  memorizing. 

Judicious  methods  of  remembering  things  are  nothing 
but  logical  ways  of  conceiving  them  and  working  them 
into  rational  systems,  classifying  them,  analyzing  them 
into  parts,  etc.,  etc.     All  the  sciences  are  such  methods. 

Of  ingenious  methods  many  have  been  invented,  under 
the  name  of  technical  memories.  By  means  of  these 
systems  it  is  often  possible  to  retain  entirely  disconnected 
facts,  lists  of  names,  numbers,  and  so  forth,  so  multitudi- 
nous as  to  be  entirely  unrememberable  in  a  natural  way. 


MEMORY.  299 

The  method  consists  usually  in  a  framework  learned 
mechanically,  of  which  the  mind  is  supposed  to  remain  in 
secure  and  permanent  possession.  Then,  whatever  is  to 
be  remembered  is  deliberately  associated  by  some  fanciful 
analogy  or  connection  with  some  part  of  this  framework, 
and  this  connection  thenceforward  helps  its  recall.  The 
best  known  and  most  used  of  these  devices  is  the  figure- 
alphabet.  To  remember  numbers,  e.g.,  a  figure-alphabet 
is  first  formed,  in  which  each  numerical  digit  is  represented 
by  one  or  more  letters.  The  number  is  then  translated  into 
such  letters  as  will  best  make  a  word,  if  possible  a  word 
suggestive  of  the  object  to  Avhich  the  number  belongs. 
The  word  will  then  be  remembered  when  the  numbers 
alone  might  be  forgotten.*  The  recent  system  of  Loisette 
is  a  method,  much  less  mechanical,  of  weaving  the  thing 
into  associations  which  may  aid  its  recall. 

Recognition. — If,  however,  a  phenomenon  be  met  with 
too  often,  and  with  too  great  a  variety  of  contexts,  although 
its  image  is  retained  and  reproduced  with  correspondingly 
great  facility,  it  fails  to  come  up  with  any  one  particular 
setting,  and  the  projection  of  it  backwards  to  a  particular 
past  date  consequently  does  not  come  about.  We  recognize 
but  do  not  remember  it — its  associates  form  too  confused  a 
cloud.  A  similar  result  comes  about  when  a  definite  setting 
is  only  nascently  aroused.  We  then  feel  that  we  have  seen 
the  object  already,  but  when  or  where  we  cannot  say,  though 
we  may  seem  to  ourselves  to  be  on  the  brink  of  saying  it. 
That  nascent  cerebral  excitations  can  thus  affect  conscious- 
ness is  obvious  from  what  happens  when  we  seek  to  remem- 
ber a  name.  It  tingles,  it  trembles  on  the  verge,  but  does 
not  come.     Just  such  a  tingling  and  trembling  of  unre- 

*  A  common  figure-alphabet  is  this: 

1234567890 

tnmr      lshg     fb     s 

d  j     k     v     p     c 

ch    c  z 

g  qu 


300  PSYCHOLOGY. 

covered  associates  is  the  penumbra  of  recognition  that  may 
surround  any  experience  and  make  it  seem  familiar,  though 
we  know  not  why. 

There  is  a  curious  experience  which  everyone  seems  to 
have  had — the  feeling  that  the  present  moment  in  its  com- 
pleteness has  been  experienced  before — we  were  saying  just 
this  thing,  in  just  this  place,  to  just  these  people,  etc. 
This  'sense  of  precxistence'  has  been  treated  as  a  great 
mystery  and  occasioned  much  speculation.  Dr.  Wigan 
considered  it  due  to  a  dissociation  of  the  action  of  the  two 
hemispheres,  one  of  them  becoming  conscious  a  little  later 
than  the  other,  but  both  of  the  same  fact.  I  must  confess 
that  the  quality  of  mystery  seems  to  me  here  a  little  strained. 
I  have  over  and  over  again  in  my  own  case  succeeded  in 
resolving  the  phenomenon  into  a  case  of  memory,  so  indis- 
tinct that  whilst  some  past  circumstances  are  presented 
again,  the  others  are  not.  The  dissimilar  portions  of  the 
past  do  not  arise  completely  enough  at  first  for  the  date  to 
be  identified.  All  we  get  is  the  present  scene  with  a  gen- 
eral suggestion  of  pastness  about  it.  That  faithful  ob- 
server, Prof.  Lazarus,  interprets  the  phenomenon  in  the 
same  way;  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  just  as  soon  as  the 
past  context  grows  complete  and  distinct  the  emotion  of 
weirdness  fades  from  the  experience. 

Forgetting. — In  the  practical  use  of  our  intellect,  for- 
getting is  as  important  a  function  as  remembering.  '  Total 
recall'  (see  p.  261)  we  saw  to  be  comparatively  rare  in  asso- 
ciation. If  we  remembered  everything,  we  should  on  most 
occasions  be  as  ill  off  as  if  we  remembered  nothing.  It 
would  take  as  long  for  us  to  recall  a  space  of  time  as  it 
took  the  original  time  to  elapse,  and  we  should  never  get 
ahead  with  our  thinking.  All  recollected  times  undergo, 
accordingly,  what  M.  Ribot  calls  foreshortening;  and  this 
foreshortening  is  due  to  the  omission  of  an  enormous 
number  of  the  facts  which  filled  them.  "  We  thus  reach 
the  paradoxical  result,"  says  M.  Ribot,  "that  one  condition 
of  remembering  is  that  we  should  forget      Without  totally 


MEMORY.  301 

forgetting  a  prodigious  number  of  states  of  consciousness, 
and  momentarily  forgetting  a  large  number,  we  could  not 
remember  at  all.  Oblivion,  except  in  certain  cases,  is  thus 
no  malady  of  memory,  but  a  condition  of  its  health  and  its 
life." 

Pathological  Conditions. — Hypnotic  subjects  as  a  rule 
forget  all  that  has  happened  in  their  trance.  But  in  a 
succeeding  trance  they  will  often  remember  the  events  of 
a  past  one.  This  is  like  what  happens  in  those  cases  of 
'  double  personality '  in  which  no  recollection  of  one  of  the 
lives  is  to  be  found  in  the  other.  The  sensibility  in  these 
cases  often  differs  from  one  of  the  alternate  personalities 
to  another,  the  patient  being  often  anaesthetic  in  certain 
respects  in  one  of  the  secondary  states.  Now  the  memory 
may  come  and  go  with  the  sensibility.  M.  Pierre  Janet 
proved,  in  various  ways  that  what  his  patients  forgot  when 
anaesthetic  they  remembered  when  the  sensibility  returned. 
For  instance,  he  restored  their  tactile  sense  temporarily  by 
means  of  electric  currents,  passes,  etc.,  and  then  made  them 
handle  various  objects,  such  as  keys  and  pencils,  or  make 
particular  movements,  like  the  sign  of  the  cross.  The 
moment  the  anaesthesia  returned  they  found  it  impossible 
to  recollect  the  objects  or  the  acts.  '  They  had  had  noth- 
ing in  their  hands,  they  had  done  nothing,'  etc.  The  next 
day,  however,  sensibility  being  again  restored  by  similar 
processes,  they  remembered  perfectly  the  circumstance, 
and  told  what  they  had  handled  or  done. 

All  these  pathological  facts  are  showing  us  that  the 
sphere  of  possible  recollection  may  be  wider  than  we  think, 
and  that  in  certain  matters  apparent  oblivion  is  no  proof 
against  possible  recall  under  other  conditions.  They  give 
no  countenance,  however,  to  the  extravagant  opinion  that 
absolutely  no  part  of  our   experience  can  be  forgotten. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 
IMAGINATION. 

What  it  is. — Sensations,  once  experienced,  modify  the. 
nervous  organism,  so  that  co})ies  of  them  arise  again  in  Ihv 
mind  after  the  original  outward  stimulus  is  gone.  No 
mental  copy,  however,  can  arise  in  the  mind,  of  any  kind 
of  sensation  which  has  never  been  directly  excited  from 
without. 

The  blind  may  dream  of  sights,  the  deaf  of  sounds,  for 
years  after  they  have  lost  their  vision  or  hearing;  but  the 
man  bom  deaf  can  never  be  made  to  imagine  what  sound 
is  like,  nor  can  the  man  bom  blind  ever  have  a  mental 
vision.  In  Locke's  words,  already  quoted,  "  the  mind  can 
frame  unto  itself  no  one  new  simple  idea."  The  originals 
of  them  all  must  have  been  given  from  without.  Fantasy, 
or  Imagination,  are  the  names  given  to  the  faculty  of 
reproducing  copies  of  originals  once  felt.  The  imagina- 
tion is  called  '  reproductive '  when  the  copies  are  literal ; 
'  productive '  when  elements  from  different  originals  are 
recombined  so  as  to  make  new  wholes. 

When  represented  with  surroundings  concrete  enough 
to  constitute  a  date,  these  pictures,  when  they  revive,  form 
recollections.  Wo  have  just  studied  the  machinery  of 
recollection.  When  the  mental  pictures  are  of  data  freely 
combined,  and  reproducing  no  past  combination  exactly, 
we  have  acts  of  imagination  properly  so  called. 

Men  differ  in  visual  imagination.  Our  ideas  or  images  - 
of  past  sensible  experiences  may  be  either  distinct  and 
adecpiate  or  dim,  blurred,  and  incomplete.  It  is  likely 
that  the  different  degrees  in  which  different  men  are  able 
to  make  them  sharp  and  complete  has  had  something  to 
do  with  keeping  up  such  philosophic  disputes  as  that  of 
Berkeley   with    Locke   over    abstract*  ideas.     Locke   had 


IMAGINATION.  303 

spoken  of  our  possessing  '  the  general  idea  of  a  triangle ' 
which  "must  be  neither  oblique  nor  rectangle,  neither 
equilateral,  equicrural,  nor  scalenon,  but  all  and  none  of 
these  at  once."  Berkeley  says :  "  If  any  man  has  the 
faculty  of  framing  in  his  mind  such  an  idea  of  a  triangle 
as  is  here  described,  it  is  in  vain  to  pretend  to  dispute  him 
out  of  it,  nor  would  I  go  about  it.  All  I  desire  is  that  the 
reader  would  fully  and  certainly  inform  himself  whether  he 
has  such  an  idea  or  no." 

Until  very  recent  years  it  was  supposed  by  philoso- 
phers that  there  was  a  typical  human  mind  which  all  indi- 
vidual minds  were  like,  and  that  propositions  of  universal 
validity  could  be  laid  down  about  such  faculties  as  '  the 
Imagination.'  Lately,  however,  a  mass  of  revelations  have 
poured  in  which  make  us  see  how  false  a  view  this  is. 
There  are  imaginations,  not  '  the  Imagination/  and  they 
must  be  studied  in  detail. 

Mr.  Galton  in  1880  began  a  statistical  inquiry  which 
may  be  said  to  have  made  an  era  in  descriptive  psy- 
chology. He  addressed  a  circular  to  large  numbers  of 
persons  asking  them  to  describe  the  image  in  their  mind's 
eye  of  their  breakfast-table  on  a  given  morning.  The 
variations  were  found  to  be  enormous;  and,  strange  to 
say,  it  appeared  that  eminent  scientific  men  on  the  average 
had  less  visualizing  power  than  younger  and  more  insigni- 
ficant persons. 

The  reader  will  find  details  in  Mr.  Galton's  '  Inquiries 
into  Human  Faculty,'  pp.  83-114.  I  have  myself  for 
many  years  collected  from  each  and  all  of  my  psychology- 
students  descriptions  of  their  own  visual  imagination;  and 
found  (together  with  some  curious  idiosyncrasies)  corrobo- 
ration of  all  the  variations  which  Mr.  Galton  reports.  As 
examples,  I  subjoin  extracts  from  two  cases  near  the  ends 
of  the  scale.  The  writers  are  first  cousins,  grandsons  of 
a  distinguished  man  of  science.  The  one  who  is  a  good 
visualizer  says : 

"  This  morning's  breakfast-table  is  both  dim  and  bright; 


304  PSYCHOLOGY. 

it  is  dim  if  I  try  to  think  of  it  when  my  eyes  are  open 
upon  any  object;  it  is  perfectly  clear  and  bright  if  I  think 
of  it  with  my  eyes  closed. — All  the  objects  are  clear  at 
once,  yet  when  I  confine  my  attention  to  any  one  object  it 
becomes  far  more  distinct. — I  have  more  power  to  recall 
color  than  any  other  one  thing:  if,  for  example,  I  were  to 
recall  a  plate  decorated  with  flowers  I  could  reproduce  in 
a  drawing  the  exact  tone,  etc.  The  color  of  anything  that 
was  on  the  table  is  perfectly  vivid. — There  is  very  little 
limitation  to  the  extent  of  my  images:  I  can  see  all  four 
sides  of  a  room,  I  can  see  all  four  sides  of  two,  three,  four, 
even  more  rooms  with  such  distinctness  that  if  you  should 
ask  me  what  was  in  any  particular  place  in  any  one,  or  ask 
me  to  count  the  chairs,  etc.,  I  could  do  it  without  the  least 
hesitation. — The  more  I  learn  by  heart  the  more  clearly  do 
I  see  images  of  my  pages.  Even  before  I  can  recite  the 
lines  I  see  them  so  that  I  could  give  them  very  slowly 
word  for  word,  but  my  mind  is  so  occupied  in  looking  at 
my  printed  image  that  I  have  no  idea  of  what  I  am  saying, 
of  the  sense  of  it,  etc.  When  1  first  found  myself  doing 
this  I  used  to  think  it  was  merely  because  I  knew  the 
lines  imperfectly;  but  I  have  quite  convinced  myself  that 
I  really  do  see  an  image.  The  strongest  proof  that  such 
is  really  the  fact  is,  I  think,  the  following: 

"  I  can  look  down  the  mentally  seen  page  and  see  the 
words  that  commence  all  the  lines,  and  from  any  one  of 
these  words  I  can  continue  the  line.  I  find  this  much 
easier  to  do  if  the  words  begin  in  a  straight  line  than  if 
;here  are  breaks.     Example: 

Etantfait 

Tous 

A  des 

Que  fit 

Ceres         .  . 

Avec      .  .  .  r 
Un  fleur 

Comme  .  .  - 
(La  Fontaine.  8.  iv.V 


IMAGINATION.  305 

The  poor  visualizer  says: 

"  My  ability  to  form  mental  images  seems,  from  what  I 
have  studied  of  other  people's  images,  to  be  defective  and 
somewhat  peculiar.  The  process  by  which  I  seem  to  re- 
member any  particular  event  is  not  by  a  series  of  distinct 
images,  but  a  sort  of  panorama,  the  faintest  impressions  of 
which  are  perceptible  through  a  thick  fog. — I  cannot  shut' 
my  eyes  and  get  a  distinct  image  of  anyone,  although  I 
used  to  be  able  to  a  few  years  ago,  and  the  faculty  seems 
to  have  gradually  slipped  away. — In  my  most  vivid  dreams, 
where  the  events  appear  like  the  most  real  facts,  I  am 
often  troubled  with  a  dimness  of  sight  which  causes  the 
images  to  appear  indistinct. — To  come  to  the  question  of 
the  breakfast-table,  there  is  nothing  definite  about  it. 
Everything  is  vague.  I  cannot  say  what  I  see.  I  could 
not  possibly  count  the  chairs,  but  I  happen  to  know  that 
there  are  ten.  I  see  nothing  in  detail. — The  chief  thing 
is  a  general  impression  that  I  cannot  tell  exactly  what  I 
do  see.  The  coloring  is  about  the  same,  as  far  as  I  can 
recall  it,  only  very  much  washed  out.  Perhaps  the  only 
color  I  can  see  at  all  distinctly  is  that  of  the  table-cloth, 
and  I  could  probably  see  the  color  of  the  wall-paper  if  I 
could  remember  what  color  it  was." 

A  person  whose  visual  imagination  is  strong  finds  it 
hard  to  understand  how  those  who  are  without  the  faculty 
can  think  at  all.  Some  -people  undoubtedly  Jiave  no  visual 
images  at  all  worthy  of  the  name,  and  instead  of  seeing 
their  breakfast-table,  they  tell  you  that  they  remember  it 
or  know  what  was  on  it.  The  'mind-stuff'  of  which  this 
'  knowing '  is  made  seems  to  be  verbal  images  exclusively. 
But  if  the  words  'coffee,'  'bacon/  'muffins,'  and  'eggs' 
lead  a  man  to  speak  to  his  cook,  to  pay  his  bills,  and  to 
take  measures  for  the  morrow's  meal  exactly  as  visual  and 
gustatory  memories  would,  why  are  they  not,  for  all  prac- 
tical intents  and  purposes,  as  good  a  kind  of  material  in 
which  to  think  ?  In  fact,  we  may  suspect  them  to  be  for 
most  purposes  better  than  terms  with  a  richer  imaginative 


306  PSYCHOLOGY. 

coloring.  The  scheme  of  relationship  and  the  conclusion 
being  the  essential  things  in  thinking,  that  kind  of  mind- 
etuff  which  is  handiest  will  be  the  best  for  the  purpose. 
Now  words,  uttered  or  unexpressed,  are  the  handiest  mental 
elements  we  have.  Not  only  are  they  very  rapidly  re- 
vivable,  but  they  are  revivable  as  actual  sensations  more 
easily  than  any  other  items  of  our  experience.  Did  they 
not  possess  some  such  advantage  as  this,  it  wonld  hardly 
be  the  case  that  the  older  men  are  and  the  more  effective 
as  thinkers,  the  more,  as  a  rule,  they  have  lost  their  visual- 
izing power,  as  Mr.  Galton  found  to  be  the  case  with  mem- 
bers of  the  Royal  Society. 

Images  of  Sounds. — These  also  differ  in  individuals. 
Those  who  think  by  preference  in  auditory  images  are 
called  audiles  by  Mr.  Galton.  This  type,  says  M.  Binet, 
"appears  to  be  rarer  than  the  visual.  Persons  of  this  type 
imagine  what  they  think  of  in  the  language  of  sound.  In 
order  to  remember  a  lesson  they  impress  upon  their  mind, 
not  the  look  of  the  page,  but  the  sound  of  the  words. 
They  reason,  as  well  as  remember,  by  ear.  In  performing 
a  mental  addition  they  repeat  verbally  the  names  of  the 
figures,  and  add,  as  it  were,  the  sounds,  without  any 
thought  of  the  graphic  signs.  Imagination  also  takes  the 
auditory  form.  '  When  I  write  a  scene,'  said  Legouve  to 
Scribe,  'I  hear;  but  you  see.  In  each  phrase  which  I 
write,  the  voice  of  the  personage  who  speaks  strikes  my 
ear.  Vous,  qui  etes  le  theatre  meme,  your  actors  walk, 
gesticulate  before  your  eyes;  I  am  a  listener,  you  a  spec- 
tator.'— 'Nothing  more  true,'  said  Scribe;  'do  you  know 
where  I  am  when  I  write  a  piece  ?  In  the  middle  of  the 
parterre.'  It  is  clear  that  th^  mire  audile,  seeking  to 
develop  only  a  single  one  of  his  faculties,  may,  like  the 
pure  visualizer,  perform  astounding  feats  of  memory — 
Mozart,  for  example,  noting  from  memory  the  Miserere  of 
the  Sistine  Chapel  after  two  hearings;  the  deaf  Bee- 
thoven, composing  and  inwardly  repeating  his  enormous 
symphonies.     On   the   other  ha,;ia,  me  man  of  auditory 


IMAGINATION.  307 

type,  like  the  visual,  is  exposed  to  serious  dangers;  for  if 
he  lose  his  auditory  images,  he  is  without  resource  and 
breaks  down  completely." 

Images  of  Muscular  Sensations. — Professor  Strieker  of 
Vienna,  who  seems  to  be  a  '  motile '  or  to  have  this  form  of 
imagination  developed  in  unusual  strength,  has  given  a 
careful  analysis  of  his  own  case.  His  recollections  both  of 
his  own  movements  and  of  those  of  other  things  are  ac- 
companied invariably  by  distinct  muscular  feelings  in  those 
parts  of  his  body  which  would  naturally  be  used  in  effect- 
ing or  in  following  the  movement.  In  thinking  of  a  soldier 
marching,  for  example,  it  is  as  if  he  were  helping  the  image 
to  march  by  marching  himself  in  his  rear.  And  if  he  sup- 
presses this  sympathetic  feeling  in  his  own  legs  and  con- 
centrates all  his  attention  on  the  imagined  soldier,  the 
latter  becomes,  as  it  were,  paralyzed.  In  general  his  im- 
agined movements,  of  whatsoever  objects,  seem  paralyzed, 
the  moment  no  feelings  of  movement  either  in  his  own  eyes 
or  in  his  own  limbs  accompany  them.  The  movements  of 
articulate  speech  play  a  predominant  part  in  his  mental 
life.  "  When,  after  my  experimental  work,"  he  says,  "  I 
proceed  to  its  description,  as  a  rule  I  reproduce  in  the  first 
instance  only  words  which  I  had  already  associated  with 
the  perception  of  the  various  details  of  the  observation 
whilst  the  latter  was  going  on.  For  speech  plays  in  all  my 
observing  so  important  a  part  that  I  ordinarily  clothe  phe- 
nomena in  words  as  fast  as  I  observe  them." 

Most  persons,  on  being  asked  in  zvhat  sort  of  terms  they 
imagine  words,  will  say,  '  In  terms  of  hearing.'  It  is  not 
until  their  attention  is  expressly  drawn  to  the  point  that 
they  find  it  difficult  to  say  whether  auditory  images 
or  motor  images  connected  with  the  organs  of  articulation 
predominate.  A  good  way  of  bringing  the  difficulty  to 
consciousness  is  that  proposed  by  Strieker:  Partly  open 
your  mouth  and  then  imagine  any  word  with  labials  or 
dentals  in  it,  such  as  'bubble,'  'toddle/  Is  your  image 
under  these  conditions   distinct  ?     To   most   people  the 


308  PSYCHOLOGY. 

imao-e  is  at  first  'thick/  as  the  sound  of  the  word  would  be 
if  they  tried  to  pronounce  it  with  the  lips  parted.  Many 
can  never  imagine  the  words  clearly  with  the  mouth  open; 
others  succeed  after  a  few  preliminary  trials.  The  experi- 
ment proves  how  dependent  our  verbal  imagination  is  on 
actual  feelings  in  lips,  tongue,  throat,  larynx,  etc.  Prof. 
Bain  says  that  "a  suppressed  articulation  is  in  fact  the 
material  of  our  recollection,  the  intellectual  manifestation, 
the  idea  of  speech."  In  persons  whose  auditory  imagina- 
tion is  weak,  the  articulatory  image  does  indeed  seem  to 
constitute  the  whole  material  for  verbal  thought.  Pro- 
fessor Strieker  says  that  in  his  own  case  no  auditory  image 
enters  into  the  words  of  which  he  thinks. 

Images  of  Touch.— These  are  very  strong  in  some  people. 
The  most  vivid  touch-images  come  when  we  ourselves 
barely  escape  local  injury,  or  when  we  see  another  injured. 
The  place  may  then  actually  tingle  with  the  imaginary  sen- 
sation— perhaps  not  altogether  imaginary,  since  goose-flesh, 
paling  or  reddening,  and  other  evidences  of  actual  muscular 
contraction  in  the  spot,  may  result. 

"  An  educated  man,"  says  Herr  G.  H.  Meyer,  "  told  me 
once  that  on  entering  his  house  one  day  he  received  a  shock 
from  crushing  the  finger  of  one  of  his  little  children  in  the 
door.  At  the  moment  of  his  fright  he  felt  a  violent  pain 
in  the  corresponding  finger  of  his  own  body,  and  this  pain 
abode  with  him  three  days." 

The  imagination  of  a  blind  deaf-mute  like  Laura  Bridg- 
man  must  be  confined  entirely  to  tactile  and  motor  mate- 
rial. All  blind  persons  must  belong  to  the  'tactile' and 
'  motile '  types  of  the  French  authors.  When  the  young 
man  whose  cataracts  were  removed  by  Dr.  Franz  was 
shown  different  geometric  figures,  he  said  he  "  had  not  been 
able  to  form  from  them  the  idea  of  a  square  and  a  disk 
until  he  perceived  a  sensation  of  what  he  saw  in  the  points 
of  his  fingers,  as  if  he  really  touched  the  objects." 

Pathological  Differences. — The  study  of  Aphasia  (see  p. 
114)  has  of  late  years  shown  how  unexpectedly  individuals 


IMAGINATION.  309 

differ  in  the  use  of  their  imagination.  In  some  the  habitual 
'thought-stuff/  if  one  may  so  call  it,  is  visual;  in  others 
it  is  auditory,  articulatory,  or  motor;  in  most,  perhaps,  it 
is  evenly  mixed.  These  are  the  "  indifferents"  of  Charcot. 
The  same  local  cerebral  injury  must  needs  work  different 
practical  results  in  persons  who  differ  in  this  way.  In 
one  what  is  thrown  out  of  gear  is  a  much-used  brain- 
tract;  in  the  other  an  unimportant  region  is  affected.  A 
particularly  instructive  case  was  published  by  Charcot  in 
1883.  The  patient  was  a  merchant,  an  exceedingly  accom- 
plished man,  but  a  visualizer  of  the  most  exclusive  type. 
Owing  to  some  intra-cerebral  accident  he  suddenly  lost  all 
his  visual  images,  and  with  them  much  of  his  intellectual 
power,  without  any  other  perversion  of  faculty.  He  soon 
discovered  that  he  could  carry  on  his  affairs  by  using  his 
memory  in  an  altogether  new  way,  and  described  clearly 
the  difference  between  his  two  conditions.  "  Every  time 
he  returns  to  A.,  from  which  place  business  often  calls  him, 
he  seems  to  himself  as  if  entering  a  strange  city.  He 
views  the  monuments,  houses,  and  streets  with  the  same 
surprise  as  if  he  saw  them  for  the  first  time.  When  asked 
to  describe  the  principal  public  place  of  the  town,  he  an- 
swered, '  I  know  that  it  is  there,  but  it  is  impossible  to 
imagine  it,  and  I  can  tell  you  nothing  about  it.'  " 

He  can  no  more  remember  his  wife  and  children's  face 
than  he  can  remember  A.  Even  after  being  with  them 
some  time  they  seem  unusual  to  him.  He  forgets  his  own 
face,  and  once  spoke  to  his  image  in  a  mirror,  taking  it  for 
a  stranger.  He  complains  of  his  loss  of  feeling  for  colors. 
"  My  wife  has  black  hair,  this  I  know;  but  I  can  no  more 
recall  its  color  than  I  can  her  person  and  features."  This 
visual  amnesia  extends  to  objects  dating  from  his  child- 
hood's years — paternal  mansion,  etc.,  forgotten.  No  other 
disturbances  but  this  loss  of  visual  images.  Now  when  he 
seeks  something  in  his  correspondence,  he  must  rummage 
among  the  letters  like  other  men,  until  he  meets  the  pas- 
sage.    He  can  recall  only  the  first  few  verses  of  the  Iliad, 


310  PSYCHOLOGY. 

and  must  grope  to  recite  II  omer,  Virgil,  and  Horace. 
Figures  which  he  adds  lie  must  now  whisper  to  himself. 
He  realizes  clearly  that  he  must  help  his  memory  out  with 
auditory  images,  which  he  does  with  effort.  The  words  and 
expressions  which  he  recalls  seem  now  to  echo  in  his  ear,  an 
altogether  novel  sensation  for  him.  If  he  wishes  to  learn 
by  heart  anything,  a  series  of  phrases  for  example,  he  must 
read  them  several  times  aloud,  so  as  to  impress  his  ear. 
When  later  he  repeats  the  thing  in  question,  the  sensation 
dl'  inward  hearing  which  precedes  articulation  rises  up  in 
his  mind.     This  feeling  was  formerly  unknown  to  him. 

Such  a  man  would  have  suffered  relatively  little  incon- 
venience if  his  images  for  hearing  had  been  those  suddenly 
destroyed. 

The  Neural  Process  in  Imagination. — Most  medical  writers 
assume  that  the  cerebral  activity  on  which  imagination 
depends  occupies  a  different  seat  from  that  subserving 
sensation.  It  is,  however,  a  simpler  interpretation  of  the 
facts  to  suppose  that  the  same  nerve-tracts  are  concerned 
in  the  two  processes.  Our  mental  images  are  aroused 
always  by  way  of  association;  some  previous  idea  or  sensa- 
tion must  have  '  suggested '  them.  Association  is  surely 
due  to  currents  from  one  cortical  centre  to  another.  Now 
all  we  need  suppose  is  that  these  intra-cortical  currents  are 
nnable  to  produce  in  the  cells  the  strong  explosions  which 
currents  from  the  sense-organs  occasion,  to  account  for  the 
subjective  difference  between  images  and  sensations,  with- 
out supposing  any  difference  in  their  local  seat.  To  the 
strong  degree  of  explosion  corresponds  the  character  of 
'  vividness '  or -sensible  presence,  in  the  object  of  thought; 
to  the  weak  degree*,  that  of  '  faintness '  or  outward  unreality. 

If  wre  admit  that  sensation  and  imagination  are  due  to 
the  activity  of  the  same  parts  of  the  cortex,  we  can  see  a 
very  good  teleological  reason  why  they  should  correspond 
to  discrete  kinds  of  process  in  these  centres,  and  why  the 
process  which  gives  the  sense  that  the  object  is  really  there 
ought  normally  to  be  arousable  only  by  currents  entering 


IMAGINATION.  311 

from  tha  periphery  and  not  by  currents  from  the  neighbor- 
ing cortical  parts.  We  can  see,  in  short,  why  the  sensational 
process  ought  to  be  discontinuous  with  all  normal  idea- 
tional processes,  however  intense.  For,  as  Dr.  Mi'msterberg 
justly  observes,  "  Were  there  not  this  peculiar  arrangement 
we  should  not  distinguish  reality  and  fantasy,  our  conduct 
would  not  be  accommodated  to  the  facts  about  us,  but 
would  be  inappropriate  and  senseless,  and  we  could  not 
keep  ourselves  alive." 

Sometimes,  by  exception,  the  deeper  sort  of  explosion 
may  take  place  from  intra-cortical  excitement  alone.     In 
the  sense  of  hearing,  sensation  and  imagination  are  hard  to 
discriminate  where  the  sensation  is  so  weak  as  to  be  just 
perceptible.     At  night,  hearing  a  very  faint  striking  of  the 
hour  by  a  far-off  clock,  our  imagination  reproduces  both 
rhythm  and  sound,  and  it  is  often  difficult  to  tell  which 
was  the  last  real  stroke.     So  of  a  baby  crying  in  a  distant 
part  of  the  house,  we  are  uncertain  whether  we  still  hear 
it,  or  only  imagine  the  sound.     Certain  violin-players  take 
advantage  of  this  in  diminuendo  terminations.     After  the 
pianissimo  has  been  reached  they  continue  to  bow  as  if  still 
playing,  but  are  careful  not  to  touch  the  strings.     The 
listener  hears  in  imagination  a  degree  of  sound  fainter  than 
the  pianissimo.     Hallucinations,  whether  of  sight  or  hear- 
ing, are  another  case  in  point,  to  be  touched  on  in  the  next 
chapter.     I  may  mention  as  a  fact  still  unexplained  that 
several  observers  (Herr  G.  H.  Meyer,  M.  Ch.  Fere,  Professor 
Scott  of  Ann  Arbor,  and    Mr.  T.  C.  Smith,  one  of  my 
students)  have  noticed  negative  after-images   of  objects 
which  they  had  been  imagining  with  the  mind's  eye.     It 
is  as  if  the  retina  itself  were  locally  fatigued  by  the  act. 


CHAPTER  XX. 
PERCEPTION. 

Perception  and  Sensation  compared. — A  pure  sensation 
we  saw  above,  p.  12,  to  be  an  abstraction  never  realized  in 
adult  life.  Anything  which  affects  our  sense-organs  does 
also  more  than  that:  it  arouses  processes  in  the  hemi- 
spheres which  are  partly  due  to  the  organization  of  that 
organ  by  past  experiences,  and  the  results  of  which  in 
consciousness  are  described  as  ideas  which  the  sensation 
suggests.  The  first  of  these  ideas  is  that  of  the  thing 
to  which  the  sensible  quality  belongs.  The  conscious- 
ness of  particular  material  things  present  to  sense  is 
nowadays  called  perception.  The  consciousness  of  such 
things  may  be  more  or  less  complete;  it  may  be  of  the 
mere  name  of  the  thing  and  its  other  essential  attributes, 
or  it  may  be  of  the  thing's  various  remoter  relations.  It  is 
impossible  to  draw  any  sharp  line  of  distinction  between 
the  barer  and  the  richer  consciousness,  because  the  mo- 
ment we  get  beyond  the  first  crude  sensation  all  our 
consciousness  is  of  what  is  suggested,  and  the  various 
suggestions  shade  gradually  into  each  other,  being  one  and 
all  products  of  the  same  psychological  machinery  of  asso- 
ciation. In  the  directer  consciousness  fewer,  in  the  re- 
moter more,  associative  processes  are  brought  into  play. 

Sensational  and  reproductive  brain-processes  combined, 
then,  are  what  give  us  the  content  of  our  perceptions. 
Every  concrete  particular  material  thing  is  a  conflux  of 
sensible  qualities,  with  which  we  have  become  acquainted 
at  various  times.  Some  of  these  qualities,  since  they  are 
more  constant,  interesting,  or  practically  important,  we 
regard  as  essential  constituents  of  the  thing.    In  a  general 


PERCEPTION.  313 

way,  such  are  the  tangible  shape,  size,  mass,  etc.  Other 
properties,  being  more  fluctuating,  we  regard  as  more  or 
less  accidental  or  inessential.  We  call  the  former  qualities 
the  reality,  the  latter  its  appearances.  Thus,  I  hear  a 
sound,  and  say  'a  horse-car';  but  the  sound  is  not  the 
horse-car,  it  is  one  of  the. horse-car's  least  important  mani- 
festations. The  real  horse-car  is  a  feelable,  or  at  most  a 
feelable  and  visible,  thing  which  in  my  imagination  the 
sound  calls  up.  So  when  I  get,  as  now,  a  brown  eye-pic- 
ture with  lines  not  parallel,  and  with  angles  unlike,  and 
call  it  my  big  solid  rectangular  walnut  library-table,  that 
picture  is  not  the  table.  Jt  is  not  even  like  the  table  as 
the  table  is  for  vision,  when  rightly  seen.  It  is  a  distorted 
perspective  view  of  three  of  the  sides  of  what  I  mentally 
perceive  (more  or  less)  in  its  totality  and  undistorted  shape. 
The  back  of  the  table,  its  square  corners,  its  size,  its  heavi- 
ness, are  features  of  which  I  am  conscious  when  I  look, 
almost  as  I  am  conscious  of  its  name.  The  suggestion  of 
the  name  is  of  course  due  to  mere  custom.  But  no  less  is 
that  of  the  back,  the  size,  weight,  squareness,  etc. 

Nature,  as  Eeid  says,  is  frugal  in  her  operations,  and 
will  not  be  at  the  expense  of  a  particular  instinct  to  give 
us  that  knowledge  which 'experience  and  habit  will  soon 
produce.  Eeproduced  attributes  tied  together  with  pres- 
ently felt  attributes  in  the  unity  of  a  thing  with  a  name, 
these  are  the  materials  out  of  which  my  actually  perceived 
table  is  made.  Infants  must  go  through  a  long  education 
of  the  eye  and  ear  before  they  can  perceive  the  realities 
which  adults  perceive.  Every  2)erception  is  an  acquired 
perception. 

The  Perceptive  State  of  Mind  is  not  a  Compound. — There 
is  no  reason,  however,  for  supposing  that  this  involves  a 
'  fusion  '  of  separate  sensations  and  ideas.  The  thing  per- 
ceived is  the  object  of  a  unique  state  of  thought;  due  no 
doubt  in  part  to  sensational,  and  in  part  to  ideational  cur- 
rents, but  in  no  wise  'containing'  psychically  the  identical 
'  sensations  '  and  images  which  these  currents  would  sev- 


314  PSYCHOLOGY. 

enilly  have  aroused  if  the  others  were  not  simultaneously 
there.  We  can  ofteu  directly  notice  a  sensible  difference  in 
the  consciousness,  between  the  latter  case  and  the  former.. 
The  sensible  quality  changes  under  our  very  eye.  Take 
the  already-quoted  catch,  Pas  de  lieu  RMne  que  nous:  one 
may  read  this  over  and  over  again  without  recognizing  the 
sounds  to  be  identical  with  those  of  the  words  paddle  your 
own  canoe.  As  the  English  associations  arise,  the  sound 
itself  appears  to  change.  Verbal  sounds  are  usually  per- 
ceived with  their  meaning  at  the  moment  of  being  heard. 
Sometimes,  however,  the  associative  irradiations  are  in- 
hibited for  a  few  moments  (the  mind  being  preoccupied 
with  other  thoughts),  whilst  the  words  linger  on  the  ear  as 
mere  echoes  of  acoustic  sensation.  Then,  usually,  their 
interpretation  suddenly  occurs.  But  at  that  moment  one 
may  often  surprise  a  change  in  the  very  feel  of  the  word. 
Our  own  language  would  sound  very  different  to  us  if  we 
heard  it  without  understanding,  as  we  hear  a  foreign 
tongue.  Rises  and  falls  of  voice,  odd  sibilants  and  other 
consonants,  would  fall  on  our  ear  in  a  way  of  which  we 
can  now  form  no  notion.  Frenchmen  say  that  English 
sounds  to  them  like  the  gazouillement  des  oiseaux — an 
impression  which  it  certainly  makes  on  no  native  ear. 
Many  of  us  English  would  describe  the  sound  of  Russian 
in  similar  terms.  All  of  us  are  conscious  of  the  strong  in- 
flections of  voice  and  explosives  and  gutturals  of  German 
speech  in  a  way  in  which  no  German  can  be  conscious  of 
them. 

This  is  probably  the  reason  why,  if  we  look  at  an  iso- 
lated printed  word  and  repeat  it  long  enough,  it  ends  by 
assuming  an  entirely  unnatural  aspect.  Let  the  reader 
try  this  with  any  word  on  this  page.  He  will  soon  begin 
to  wonder  if  it  can  possibly  be  the  word  he  has  been  using 
all  his  life  with  that  meaning.  It  stares  at  him  from  the 
paper  like  a  glass  eye,  with  no  speculation  in  it.  Its  body 
is  indeed  there,  but  its  soul  is  fled.  It  is  reduced,  by  this 
new  way  of  attending  to  it,  to  its  sensational  nudity.     We 


PERCEPT  1  ON.  3 1 5 

never  before  attended  to  it  in  this  way,  but  habitually  got 
it  clad  with  its  meaning  the  moment  we  caught  sight  of  it, 
and  rapidly  passed  from  it  to  the  other  words  of  the  phrase. 
We  apprehended  it,  in  short,  with  a  cloud  of  associates,  and 
thus  perceiving  it,  we  felt  it  quite  otherwise  than  as  we  feel 
it  now  divested  and  alone. 

Another  well-known  change  is  when  we  look  at  a  land- 
scape with  our  head  upside-down.     Perception  is  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  baffled  by  this  manoeuvre;   gradations  of  dis- 
tance and  other  space-determinations  are  made  uncertain ; 
the  reproductive  or  associative  processes,  in  short,  decline; 
and,  simultaneously  with  their  diminution,  the  colors  grow 
richer  and  more  varied,  and   the  contrasts  of  light  and 
shade  more  marked.     The  same   thing   occurs  when  we 
turn  a  painting   bottom-upward.     We   lose   much  of  its 
meaning,  but,  to  compensate  for  the  loss,  we  feel   more 
freshly  the  value  of  the  mere  tints  and  shadings,  and  be- 
come aware  of  any  lack  of  purely  sensible  harmony  or  bal- 
ance which  they  may  show.     Just  so,  if  we  lie  on  the  floor 
and  look  up  at  the  mouth  of  a  person  talking  behind  us. 
His  lower  lip  here  takes  the  habitual  place  of  the  upper 
one  Hipon   our  retina,  and   seems  animated  by  the  most 
extraordinary  and   unnatural   mobility,  a  mobility  which 
now  strikes  us  because  (the  associative  processes  being  dis- 
turbed by  the  unaccustomed  point  of  view)  we  get  it  as  a 
naked  sensation  and  not  as  part  of  a  familiar  object  per- 
ceived. 

Once  more,  then,  we  find  ourselves  driven  to  admit  that 
when  qualities  of  an  object  impress  our  sense  and  we  there- 
upon perceive  the  object,  the  pure  sensation  as  such  of 
those  qualities  does  not  still  exist  inside  of  the  perception 
and  form  a  constituent  thereof.  The  pure  sensation  is 
one  thing  and  the  perception  another,  and  neither  can 
take  place  at  the  same  time  with  the  other,  because  their 
cerebral  conditions  are  not  the  same.  They  may  resemble 
each  other,  but  in  no  respect  are  they  identical  states  of 
mind. 


316  PSYCHOLOGY. 

Perception  is  of  Definite  and  Probable  Things. — The 
chief  cerebral  conditions  of  perception  are  old  paths  of 
association  radiating  from  the  sense-impression.  If  a  cer- 
tain impression  be  strongly  associated  with  the  attributes 
of  a  certain  thing,  that  thing  is  almost  sure  to  be  perceived 
when  we  get  the  impression.  Examples  of  such  things 
would  be  familiar  people,  places,  etc.,  which  we  recognize 
and  name  at  a  glance.  But  where  the  impression  is  asso- 
ciated with  more  than  one  reality,  so  that  either  of  two 
discrepant  sets  of  residual  properties  may  arise,  the  per- 
ception is  doubtful  and  vacillating,  and  the  most  that  can 
then  be  said  of  it  is  that  it  will  be  of  a  probable  thinff, 
of  the  thing  which  would  most  usually  have  given  us  that 
sensation. 

In  these  ambiguous  cases  it  is  interesting  to  note  that 
perception  is  rarely  abortive  ;  some  perception  takes  place. 
The  two  discrepant  sets  of  associates  do  not  neutralize  each 
other  or  mix  and  make  a  blur.  What  we  more  commonly 
get  is  first  one  object  in  its  completeness,  and  then  the 
other  in  its  completeness.  In  other  words,  all  brain-pro- 
cesses are  such  as  give  rise  to  what  we  may  call  figured 
consciousness.  If  paths  are  shot-through  at  all,  they  are 
shot-through  in  consistent  systems,  and  occasion  thoughts 
of  definite  objects,  not  mere  hodge-podges  of  elements. 
Even  where  the  brain's  functions  are  half  thrown  out  of 
gear,  as  in  aphasia  or  dropping  asleep,  this  law  of  figured 
consciousness  holds  good.  A  person  who  suddenly  gets 
sleepy  whilst  reading  aloud  will  read  wrong;  but  instead  of 
emitting  a  mere  broth  of  syllables,  he  will  make  such  mis- 
takes as  to  read  ' supper-time'  instead  of  'sovereign,' 
'overthrow  '  instead  of  'opposite,'  or  indeed  utter  entirely 
imaginary  phrases,  composed  of  several  definite  words,  in- 
stead of  phrases  of  the  book.  So  in  aphasia:  where  the 
disease  is  mild  the  patient's  mistakes  consist  in  using 
entire  wrong  words  instead  of  right  ones.  It  is  only  in 
grave  lesions  that  he  becomes  quite  inarticulate.  These 
facts  show  how  subtle  is  the  associative  Jink;  how  delicate 


PERCEPTION.  317 

yet  how  strong  that  connection  among  brain-paths  which 
makes  any  number  of  them,  once  excited  together,  there- 
after tend  to  vibrate  as  a  systematic  whole.  A  small  group 
of  elements,  'this,'  common  to  two  systems,  A  and  B,  may 
touch  off  A  or  B  according  as  accident  decides  the  next 
step  (see  Fig.  G3).  If  it  happen  that  a  single  point  leading 
from  'this'  to  B  is  momentarily  a  little  more  pervious 
than  any  leading  from  'this'  to  A,  then  that  little  advan- 
tage will  upset  the  equilibrium  in  favor  of  the  entire  sys- 
tem B.     The  currents  will  sweep  first  through  that  point 


Fig.  63. 

and  thence  into  all  the  paths  of  B,  each  increment  of  ad- 
vance making  A  more  and  more  impossible.  The  thoughts 
correlated  with  A  and  B,  in  such  a  case,  will  have  objects 
different,  though  similar.  The  similarity  will,  however, 
consist  in  some  very  limited  feature  if  the  'this'  be  small. 
Thus  the  faintest  sensations  will  give  rise  to  the  percep- 
tion of  definite  things  if  only  they  resemble  those  which  the 
things  are  wont  to  arouse. 

Illusions. — Let  us  now,  for  brevity's  sake,  treat  A  and  B 
in  Fig.  63  as  if  they  stood  for  objects  instead  of  brain- 
processes.  And  let  us  furthermore  suppose  that  A  and  B 
are,  both  of  them,  objects  which  might  probably  excite  the 
sensation  which  I  have  called  'this,'  but  that  on  the 
present  occasion  A  and  not  B  is  the  one  which  actually 
does  so.  If,  then,  on  this  occasion  'this*  suggests  A  and 
not  B,  the  result  is  a  correct  perception.  But  if,  on  the 
contrary,  '  this '  suggests  B  and  not  A,  the  result  is  &  false 
perception,  or,  as  it  is  technically  called,  an  illusion.  But 
the  process  is  the  same,  whether  the  perception  be  true 
or  false. 


318  PSYCHOLOGY. 

Note  that  in  every  illusion  what  is  false  is  what  is  in- 
ferred, not  what  is  immediately  given.  The  'this,'  if  it 
were  felt  by  itself  alone,  would  be  all  right;  it  only  be- 
comes misleading  by  what  it  suggests.  If  it  is  a  sensation 
of  sight,  it  may  suggest  a  tactile  object,  for  example,  which 
later  tactile  experiences  prove  to  be  not  there.  The  so- 
called  'fallacy  of  the  senses/  of  which  the  ancient  scejitics 
made  so  much  account,  is  not  fallacy  of  the  senses  proper, 
but  rather  of  the  intellect,  which  interpret.*  wrongly  what 
the  senses  give.* 

So  much  premised,  let  us  look  a  little  closer  at  these  il- 
lusions. They  are  due  to  two  main  causes.  The  wrong 
object  is  perceived  either  because 

1)  Although  not  on  this  occasion  the  real  cause,  it  is  yet 
the  habitual,  inveterate,  or  most  probable  cause  of  'this'/ 
or  because 

•2)  The  mind  is  temporarily  full  of  the  thought  of  that 
object,  and  therefore  'this'  is  peculiarly  prone  to  suggest  it 
at  this  moment. 

I  will  give  briefly  a  number  of  examples  under  each  head. 

The  first  head  is  the  more  important,  because  it  includes  a 

number  of  constant  illusions  to  which  all  men  are  subject, 

and  which  can  only  be  dispelled  by  much  experience. 

Illusions  of  the  First  Type. — One  of  the  oldest  instances 

dates  from  Aristotle.  Cross 
two  fingers  and  roll  a  pea, 
penholder,  or  other  small 
object  between  them.  It 
will  seem  double.  Professor 
Croom  Robertson  has  given 
fig.  •'».  the  clearest  analysis  of  this  il- 

lusion.    He  observes   that  if  the  object  be  brought  into 

*  In  Mind,  ix.  206,  M.  Binet  points  out  the  fact  that  what  is  falla- 
ciously inferred  is  always  an  object  of  some  other  sense  than  the 
'this.'  'Optical  illusions'  are  generally  errors  of  touch  and  muscu- 
lar sensibility,  and  the  fallaciously  perceived  object  and  the  experi- 
ences which  correct  it  are  both  tactile,  in  these  cases. 


PERCEPTION.  319 

contact  first  with  the  forefinger  and  next  with  the  second 
finger,  the  two  contacts  seem  to  come  in  at  different  points 
of  space.  The  forefinger-touch  seems  higher,  though  the 
finger  is  really  lower;  the  second-finger- touch  seems  lower, 
though  the  finger  is  really  higher.  "  We  perceive  the  con- 
tacts as  double  because  we  refer  them  to  two  distinct  parts 
of  space."  The  touched  sides  of  the  two  fingers  are  nor- 
mally not  together  in  space,  and  customarily  never  do 
touch  one  thing;  the  one  thing  which  now  touches  them, 
therefore,  seems  in  two  places,  i.e.  seems  two  things. 

There  is  a  whole  batch  of  illusions  which  come  from 
optical  sensations  interpreted  by  us  in  accordance  with  our 
usual  rule,  although  they  are  now  produced  by  an  unusual 
object.  The  stereoscope  is  an  example.  The  eyes  see  a 
picture  apiece,  and  the  two  pictures  are  a  little  disparate, 
the  one  seen  by  the  right  eye  being  a  view  of  the  object 
taken  from  a  point  slightly  to  the  right  of  that  from  which 
the  left  eye's  picture  is  taken.  Pictures  thrown  on  the 
two  eyes  by  solid  objects  present  this  sort  of  disparity, 
so  that  we  react  on  the  sensation  in  our  usual  way,  and 
perceive  a  solid.  If  the  pictures  be  exchanged  we  perceive 
a  hollow  mould  of  the  object,  for  a  hollow  mould  would 
cast  just  such  disparate  pictures  as  these.  Wheatstone's 
instrument,  the  pseudoscope,  allows  us  to  look  at  solid  ob- 
jects and  see  with  each  eye  the  other  eye's  picture.  We 
then  perceive  the  solid  object  hollow,  if  it  be  an  object 
which  might  probably  be  holloto,  but  not  otherwise.  Thus 
the  perceptive  process  is  true  to  its  law,  which  is  ahvays.to 
react  on  the  sensation  in  a  determinate  and  figured  fash- 
ion if  possible,  and  in  as  probable  a  fashion  as  the  case 
admits.  A  human  face,  e.g.,  never  appears  hollow  to  the 
pseudoscope,  for  to  couple  faces  and  hollowness  violates  all 
our  habits.  For  the  same  reason  it  is  very  easy  to  make 
an  intaglio  cast  of  a  face,  or  the  painted  inside  of  a  paste- 
board mask,  look  convex,  instead  of  concave  as  they  are. 

Curious  illusions   of  movement  in  objects  occur  when- 
ever  the  eyeballs   move  without   our  intending  it.      We 


320  PSYCnOLOOY. 

have  learned  in  an  earlier  chapter  (p.  72)  that  the  original 
visual  feeling  of  movement  is  produced  by  any  image  pass- 
ing over  the  retina.  Originally,  however,  this  sensation  is 
definitely  referred  neither  to  the  object  nor  to  the  eyes. 
Such  definite  reference  grows  up  later,  and  obeys  certain 
simple  laws.  For  one  thing,  we  believe  objects  to  move 
whenever  we  get  the  retinal  movement-feeling,  but  think 
our  eyes  are  still.  This  gives  rise  to  an  illusion  when, 
after  whirling  on  our  heel,  we  stand  still;  for  then  ob- 
jects appear  to  continue  whirling  in  the  same  direction  in 
which,  a  moment  previous,  our  body  actually  whirled.  The 
reason  is  that  our  eyes  are  animated,  under  these  condi- 
tions, by  an  involuntary  nystagmus  or  oscillation  in  their 
orbits,  which  may  easily  be  observed  in  anyone  with  vertigo 
aftei  whirling.  As  these  movements  are  unconscious,  the 
retinal  movement-feelings  which  they  occasion  are  naturally 
referred  to  the  objects  seen.  The  whole  phenomenon  fades 
out  after  a  few  seconds.  And  it  ceases  if  we  voluntarily 
fix  our  eyes  upon  a  given  point. 

There  is  an  illusion  of  movement  of  the  opposite  sort, 
with  which  every  one  is  familiar  at  railway  stations. 
Habitually,  when  we  ourselves  move  forward,  our  entire 
field  of  view  glides  backward  over  our  retina.  When  our 
movement  is  due  to  that  of  the  windowed  carriage,  car,  or 
boat  in  which  we  sit,  all  stationary  objects  visible  through 
the  window  give  us  a  sensation  of  gliding  in  the  opposite 
direction.  Hence,  whenever  we  get  this  sensation,  of  a 
window  with  all  objects  visible  through  it  moving  in  one 
direction,  we  react  upon  it  in  our  customary  way,  and 
perceive  a  stationary  field  of  view,  over  which  the  window, 
and  we  ourselves  inside  of  it,  are  passing  by  a  motion  of 
our  own.  Consequently  when  another  train  comes  along- 
side of  ours  in  a  station,  and  fills  the  entire  window,  and, 
aftei  standing  still  awhile,  begins  to  glide  away,  we  judge 
that  it  is  our  train  which  is  moving,  and  that  the  other 
train  is  still.  If,  however,  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  any  part 
of  the  station  through  the  windows,  or  between  the  cars,  of 


PERCEPTION.  321 

the  other  train,  the  illusion  of  our  own  movement  instantly 
disappears,  and  we  perceive  the  other  train  to  be  the  one 
in  motion.  This,  again,  is  but  making  the  usual  and 
probable  inference  from  our  sensation. 

Another  illusion  due  to  movement  is  explained  by  Helm- 
holtz.  Most  wayside  objects,  houses,  trees,  etc.,  look  small 
when  seen  from  the  windows  of  a  swift  train.  This  is 
because  we  perceive  them  in  the  first  instance  unduly  near. 
And  we  perceive  them  unduly  near  because  of  their  extra- 
ordinarily rapid  parallactic  flight  backwards.  When  we 
ourselves  move  forward  ail  objects  glide  backwards,  as 
aforesaid;  but  the  nearer  they  are,  the  more  rapid  is  this 
apparent  translocation.  Relative  rapidity  of  passage  back- 
wards is  thus  so  familiarly  associated  with  nearness  that 
when  we  feel  it  we  perceive  nearness.  But  with  a  given 
size  of  retinal  image  the  nearer  an  object  is,  the  smaller  do 
we  judge  its  actual  size  to  be.  Hence  in  the  train,  the 
faster  we  go,  the  nearer  do  the  trees  and  houses  seem ;  and 
the  nearer  they  seem,  the  smaller  (with  that  size  of  retinal 
image)  must  they  look. 

The  feelings  of  our  eyes'  convergence,  of  their  accommo- 
dation, the  size  of  the  retinal  image,  etc.,  may  give  rise  to 
illusions  about  the  size  and  distance  of  objects,  which  also 
belong  to  this  first  type. 

Illusions  of  the  Second  Type. — In  this  type  we  perceive  a 
wrong  object  because  our  mind  is  full  of  the  thought  of  it 
at  the  time,  and  any  sensation  which  is  in  the  least  degree 
connected  with  it  touches  off,  as  it  were,  a  train  already 
laid,  and  gives  us  a  sense  that  the  object  is  really  before  us 
Here  is  a  familiar  example: 

"If  a  sportsman,  while  shooting  woodcock  in  cover, 
sees  a  bird  about  the  size  and  color  of  a  woodcock  get  up 
and  fly  through  the  foliage,  not  having  time  to  see  more 
than  that  it  is  a  bird  of  such  a  size  and  color,  he  immedi- 
ately supplies  by  inference  the  other  qualities  of  a  wood- 
cock, and  is  afterwards  disgusted  to  find  that  he  has  shot  a 
thrush.     I  have  done  so  myself,  and  could  hardly  believe 


322  PSYCHOLOGY. 

that  the  thrush  was  the  bird  I  fired  at,  so  complete  was 
my  mental  supplement  to  my  visual  perception."  * 

As  with  game,  so  with  enemies,  ghosts,  and  the  like. 
Anyone  waiting  in  a  dark  place  and  expecting  or  fearing 
strongly  a  certain  object  will  interpret  -any  abrupt  sensa- 
tion to  mean  that  object's  presence.  The  boy  playing  '  I 
spy/  the  criminal  skulking  from  his  pursuers,  the  super- 
stitious person  hurrying  through  the  woods  or  past  the 
churchyard  at  midnight,  the  man  lost  in  the  woods,  the 
girl  who  tremulously  has  made  an  evening  appointment 
with  her  swain,  all  are  subject  to  illusions  of  sight  and 
sound  which  make  their  hearts  beat  till  they  are  dispelled. 
Twenty  times  a  day  the  lover,  perambulating  the  streets 
with  his  preoccupied  fancy,  will  think  he  perceives  his 
idol's  bonnet  hefore  him. 

The  Proof-reader's  Illusion. — I  remember  one  night  in 
Boston,  whilst  waiting  for  a  'Mount  Auburn'  car  to  bring 
me  to  Cambridge,  reading  most  distinctly  that  name  upon 
the  signboard  of  a  car  on  which  (as  I  afterwards  learned) 
'  North  Avenue '  was  painted.  The  illusion  was  so  vivid 
that  I  could  hardly  believe  my  eyes  had  deceived  me.  All 
reading  is  more  or  less  performed  in  this  way. 

"  Practised  novel-  or  newspaper-readers  could  not  possi- 
bly get  on  so  fast  if  they  had  to  see  accurately  every  single 
letter  of  every  word  in  order  to  perceive  the  words.  More 
than  half  of  the  words  come  out  of  their  mind,  and  hardly 
half  from  the  printed  page.  Were  this  not  so,  did  we  per- 
ceive each  letter  by  itself,  typographic  errors  in  well-known 
words  would  never  be  overlooked.  Children,  whose  ideas 
are  not  yet  ready  enough  to  perceive  words  at  a  glance, 
read  them  wrong  if  they  are  printed  wrong,  that  is,  right 
according  to  the  way  of  printing.  In  a  foreign  language, 
although  it  may  be  printed  with  the  same  letters,  we  read 
by  so  much  the  more  slowly  as  we  do  not  understand,  or 
are  unable  promptly  to  perceive,  the  words.     But  we  notice 

*  Romanes,  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals,  p.  324. 


PERCEPTION.  323 

misprints  all  the  more  readily.  For  this  reason  Latin  and 
Greek,  and  still  better  Hebrew,  works  are  more  correctly 
printed,  because  the  proofs  are  better  corrected,  than  in 
German  works.  Of  two  friends  of  mine,  one  knew  much 
Hebrew,  the  other  little;  the  latter,  however,  gave  instruc- 
tion in  Hebrew  in  a  gymnasium;  and  when  he  called  the 
other  to  help  correct  his  pupils'  exercises,  it  turned  out 
that  he  could  find  out  all  sorts  of  little  errors  better  than 
his  friend,  because  the  latter's  perception  of  the  words  as 
totals  was  too  swift."  * 

Testimony  to  personal  identity  is  proverbially  fallacious 
for  similar  reasons.  A  man  has  witnessed  a  rapid  crime 
or  accident,  and  carries  away  his  mental  ima?e.  Later  he 
is  confronted  by  a  prisoner  whom  he  forthwith  perceives 
in  the  light  of  that  image,  and  recognizes  or  '  identifies '  as 
the  criminal,  although  he  may  never  have  been  near  the 
spot.  Similarly  at  the  so-called  'materializing  seances' 
which  fraudulent  mediums  give:  in  a  dark  room  a  man 
sees  a  gauze-robed  figure  who  in  a  whisper  tells  him  she  is 
the  spirit  of  his  sister,  mother,  wife,  or  child,  and  falls 
upon  his  neck.  The  darkness,  the  previous  forms,  and  the 
expectancy  have  so  filled  his  mind  with  premonitory 
images  that  it  is  no  wonder  he  perceives  what  is  suggested. 
These  fraudulent  'seances'  would  furnish  most  precious 
documents  to  the  psychology  of  perception,  if  they  could 
only  be  satisfactorily  inquired  into.  In  the  hypnotic 
trance  any  suggested  object  is  sensibly  perceived.  In  cer- 
tain subjects  this  happens  more  or  less  completely  after 
waking  from  the  trance.  It  would  seem  that  under  favor- 
able conditions  a  somewhat  similar  susceptibility  to  sug- 

*  M.  Lazarus:  Das  Leben  d.  Seele  (1857),  n.  p.  32.  In  the  ordinary 
hearing  of  speech  half  the  words  we  seem  to  hear  are  supplied  out  of 
our  own  head.  A  language  with  which  we  are  familiar  is  under- 
stood even  when  spoken  in  low  tones  and  far  off.  An  unfamiliar 
language  is  unintelligible  under  these  conditions.  The  '  ideas '  for 
interpreting  the  sounds  by  not  being  ready-made  in  our  minds,  as  they 
are  in  our  familiar  mother-tongue,  do  not  start  up  at  so  faint  a  cue. 


324  PSYCHOLOGY. 

gestion  may  exist  in  certain  persons  who  are  not  otherwise 
entranced  at  all. 

This  suggestibility  obtains  in  all  the  senses,  although 
high  authorities  have  doubted  this  power  of  imagination 
to  falsify  present  impressions  of  sense.  Everyone  must  be 
able  to  give  instances  from  the  smell-sense.  When  we 
have  paid  the  faithless  plumber  for  pretending  to  mend 
our  drains,  the  intellect  inhibits  the  nose  from  perceiving 
the  same  unaltered  odor,  until  perhaps  several  days  go  by. 
As  regards  the  ventilation  or  heating  of  rooms,  we  are  apt 
to  feel  for  some  time  as  we  think  we  ought  to  feel.  If  we 
believe  the  ventilator  is  shut,  we  feel  the  room  close.  On 
discovering  it  open,  the  oppression  disappears. 

It  is  the  same  with  touch.  Everyone  must  have  felt  the 
sensible  quality  change  under  his  hand,  as  sudden  contact 
with  something  moist  or  hairy,  in  the  dark,  awoke  a  shock 
of  disgust  or  fear  which  faded  into  calm  recognition  of 
some  familiar  object.  Even  so  small  a  thing  as  a  crumb 
of  potato  on  the  table-cloth,  which  we  pick  up,  thinking 
it  a  crumb  of  bread,  feels  horrible  for  a  few  moments  to 
our  fancy,  and  different  from  what  it  is. 

In  the  sense  of  hearing,  similar  mistakes  abound.  Every- 
one must  recall  some  experience  in  which  sounds  have 
altered  their  character  as  soon  as  the  intellect  referred 
them  to  a  different  source.  The  other  day  a  friend  was 
sitting  in  my  room,  when  the  clock,  which  has  a  rich  low 
chime,  began  to  strike.  "  Hollo ! "  said  he,  "  hear  that 
hand-organ  ir  the  garden,"  and  was  surprised  at  finding 
the  real  source  of  the  sound.  I  have  had  myself  a  striking 
illusion  of  the  sort.  Sitting  reading,  late  one  night,  I  sud- 
denly heard  a  most  formidable  noise  proceeding  from  the 
upper  part  of  the  house,  which  it  seemed  to  fill.  It  ceased, 
and  in  a  moment  renewed  itself.  I  went  into  the  hall  to 
listen,  but  it  came  no  more.  Resuming  my  seat  in  the 
room,  however,  there  it  was  again,  low,  mighty,  alarming, 
like  a  rising  flood  or  the  avant-courier  of  an  awful  gale.  It 
came  from  all  space.     Quite  startled,  I  again  went  into  the 


PERCEPTION.  325 

hall,  but  it  had  already  ceased  once  more.  On  returning 
a  second  time  to  the  room,  I  discovered  that  it  was  noth- 
ing but  the  breathing  of  a  little  Scotch  terrier  which  lay 
asleep  on  the  floor.  The  noteworthy  thing  is  that  as  soon 
as  I  recognized  what  it  was,  I  was  compelled  to  think  it  a 
different  sound,  and  could  not  then  hear  it  as  I  had  heard 
it  a  moment  before. 

The  sense  of  sight  is  pregnant  with  illusions  of  both  the 
types  considered.  No  sense  gives  such  fluctuating  im- 
pressions of  the  same  object  as  sight  does.  With  no  sense 
are  we  so  apt  to  treat  the  sensations  immediately  given  as 
mere  signs;  with  none  is  the  invocation  from  memory  of  a 
tiling,  and  the  consequent  perception  of  the  latter,  so 
immediate.  The  'thing'  which  we  perceive  always  resem- 
bles, as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  the  object  of  some  absent 
sensation,  usually  another  optical  figure  which  in  our  mind 
has  come  to  be  a  standard  bit  of  reality;  and  it  is  this  in- 
cessant reduction  of  our  immediately  given  optical  objects 
to  more  standard  and  'real'  forms  which  has  led  some 
authors  into  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  our  optical  sen- 
sations are  originally  and  natively  of  no  particular  form 
at  all. 

Of  accidental  and  occasional  illusions  of  sight  many 
amusing  examples  might  be  given.  Two  will  suffice.  One 
is  a  reminiscence  of  my  own.  I  was  lying  in  my  berth  in 
a  steamer  listening  to  the  sailors  '  at  their  devotions  with 
the  holystones'  outside;  when,  on  turning  my  eyes  to  the 
window,  I  perceived  with  perfect  distinctness  that  the 
chief-engineer  of  the  vessel  had  entered  my  state-room, 
and  was  standing  looking  through  the  window  at  the  men 
at  work  upon  the  guards.  Surprised  at  his  intrusion,  and 
also  at  his  intentness  and  immobility,  I  remained  watching 
him  and  wondering  how  long  he  would  stand  thus.  At 
last  I  spoke;  but  getting  no  reply,  sat  up  in  my  berth,  and 
then  saw  that  what  I  had  taken  for  the  engineer  was  my 
own  cap  and  coat  hanging  on  a  peg  beside  the  window. 
The  illusion  was  complete;  the  engineer  was  a  peculiar- 


8*26  PSYCHOLOGY. 

looking  man;  and  I  saw  him  unmistakably;  but  after  the 
illusion  had  vanished  I  found  it  hard  voluntarily  to  make 
the  cap  and  coat  look  like  him  at  all. 

'  Apperception.' — In  Germany  since  Herbart's  time  psy- 
chology has  always  had  a  great  deal  to  say  about  a  process 
failed  AjtpercejJtion.  The  incoming  ideas  or  sensations 
are  said  to  be  '  apperceived  '  by  '  masses  '  of  ideas  already 
in  the  mind.  It  is  plain  that  the  process  we  have  been 
describing  as  perception  is,  at  this  rate,  an  apperceptive 
process.  So  are  all  recognition,  classing,  and  naming; 
and  passing  beyond  these  simplest  suggestions,  all  farther 
thoughts  about  our  percepts  are  apperceptive  processes  as 
well.  I  have  myself  not  used  the  word  apperception,  be- 
cause it  has  carried  very  different  meanings  in  the  history 
of  philosophy,  and  '  psychic  reaction/  '  interpretation/ 
'conception/  'assimilation/  'elaboration/  or  simply 
'  thought/  are  perfect  synonyms  for  its  Herbartian  mean- 
ing, widely  taken.  It  is,  moreover,  hardly  worth  while  to 
pretend  to  analyze  the  so-called  apperceptive  performances 
beyond  the  first  or  perceptive  stage,  because  their  varia- 
tions and  degrees  are  literally  innumerable.  'Appercep- 
tion '  is  a  name  for  the  sum  total  of  the  effects  of  what  we 
have  studied  as  association;  and  it  is  obvious  that  the 
tilings  which  a  given  experience  will  suggest  to  a  man 
depend  on  what  Mr.  Lewes  calls  his  entire  psychostatical 
conditions,  his  nature  and  stock  of  ideas,  or,  in  other 
words,  his  character,  habits,  memory,  education,  previous 
experience,  and  momentary  mood.  We  gain  no  insight 
into  what  really  occurs  either  in  the  mind  or  in  the  brain 
by  calling  all  these  things  the  '  apperceivmg  mass/  though 
of  course  this  may  upon  occasion  be  convenient.  On  the 
whole  I  am  inclined  to  think  Mr.  Lewes's  term  of  'assimi- 
lation '  the  most  fruitful  one  yet  used. 

The  '  apperceiving  mass '  is  treated  by  the  Germans  as 
the  active  factor,  the  apperceived  sensation  as  the  passive 
one;  the  sensation  being  usually  modified  by  the  ideas  in 
the  mind,     Out  of  the  interaction  of  the  two,  cognition  is 


PERCEPTION.  327 

produced.  But  as  Steinthal  remarks,  the  apperceiving 
mass  is  itself  often  modified  by  the  sensation.  To  quote 
him :  "  Although  the  a  priori  moment  commonly  shows 
itself  to  be  the  more  powerful,  apperception-processes  can 
perfectly  well  occur  in  which  the  new  observation  trans- 
forms or  enriches  the  apperceiving  group  of  ideas.  A 
child  who  hitherto  has  seen  none  but  four-cornered  tables 
apperceives  a  round  one  as  a  table;  but  by  this  the  ap- 
perceiving mass  ('table')  is  enriched.  To  his  previous 
knowledge  of  tables  comes  this  new  feature  that  they  need 
not  be  four-cornered,  but  may  be  round.  In  the  history  of 
science  it  has  happened  often  enough  that  some  discovery, 
at  the  same  time  that  it  was  apperceived,  i.e.  brought  into 
connection  with  the  system  of  our  knowledge,  transformed 
the  whole  system.  In  principle,  however,  we  must  main- 
tain that,  although  either  factor  is  both  active  and  passive, 
the  f.  priori  factor  is  almost  always  the  more  active  of  the 
two."  * 

Genius  and  Old-fogyism. — This  account  of  Steinthal's 
brings  out  very  clearly  the  difference  between  our  psycho- 
logical conceptions  and  what  are  called  concepts  in  logic. 
In  logic  a  concept  is  unalterable;  but  what  are  popularly 
called  our  '  conceptions  of  things '  alter  by  being  used. 
The  aim  of  '  Science  '  is  to  attain  conceptions  so  adequate 
and  exact  that  we  shall  never  need  to  change  them.  There 
is  an  everlasting  struggle  in  every  mind  betAveen  the  ten- 
dency to  keep  unchanged,  and  the  tendency  to  renovate, 
its  ideas.  Our  education  is  a  ceaseless  compromise  be- 
tween the  conservative  and  the  progressive  factors.  Every 
new  experience  must  be  disposed  of  under  some  old  head. 
The  great  point  is  to  find  the  head  which  has  to  be  least 
altered  to  take  it  in.  Certain  Polynesian  natives,  seeing 
horses  for  the  first  time,  called  them  pigs,  that  being  the 
nearest  head.  My  child  of  two  played  for  a  week  with  the 
first  orange  that  was  given  him,  calling  it  a  'ball/     He 


*  Einleituiig  in  die  Psychologie  u.  Spracliwisseoscli^tt  (1881),  p.  171. 


328  PSYCHOLOGY. 

culled  the  first  whole  eggs  he  saw  '  potatoes/  having  been 
accustomed  to  see  his  '  eggs  '  broken  into  a  glass,  and  his 
potatoes  without  the  skin.  A  folding  pocket-corkscrew  he 
unhesitatingly  called  '  bad-scissors.'  Hardly  any  one  of  us 
can  make  new  heads  easily  when  fresh  experiences  come. 
Most  of  us  grow  more  and  more  enslaved  to  the  stock  con- 
ceptions with  which  we  have  once  become  familiar,  and 
less  and  less  capable  of  assimilating  impressions  in  any 
but  the  old  ways.  Old-fogyism,  in  short,  is  the  inevitable 
terminus  to  which  life  sweeps  us  on.  Objects  which  vio- 
late our  established  habits  of  '  apperception '  are  simply 
not  taken  account  of  at  all ;  or,  if  on  some  occasion  we  are 
forced  by  dint  of  argument  to  admit  their  existence, 
twenty-four  hours  later  the  admission  is  as  if  it  were  not, 
and  every  trace  of  the  unassimilable  truth  has  vanished 
from  our  thought.  Genius,  in  truth,  means  little  more 
than  the  faculty  of  perceiving  in  an  unhabitual  way. 

On  the  other  hand,  nothing  is  more  congenial,  from 
babyhood  to  the  end  of  life,  than  to  be  able  to  assimilate 
the  new  to  the  old,  to  meet  each  threatening  violator  or 
burster  of  our  well-known  series  of  concepts,  as  it  comes 
in,  see  through  its  unwontedness,  and  ticket  it  off  as  an 
old  friend  in  disguise.  This  victorious  assimilation  of  the 
new  is  in  fact  the  type  of  all  intellectual  pleasure.  The  lust 
for  it  is  scientific  curiosity.  The  relation  of  the  new  to  the 
old,  before  the  assimilation  is  performed,  is  wonder.  We 
feel  neither  curiosity  nor  wonder  concerning  things  so  far 
beyond  us  that  we  have  no  concepts  to  refer  them  to  or 
standards  by  which  to  measure  them.*     The  Fuegians,  in 

*  The  great  maxim  in  pedagogy  is  to  knit  every  new  piece  of 
knowledge  on  to  a  preexisting  curiosity — i.e.,  to  assimilate  its  matter 
in  some  way  to  what  is  already  known.  Hence  the  advantage  of 
•'comparing  all  that  is  far  off  and  foreign  to  something  that  is  near 
home,  of  making  the  unknown  plain  by  the  example  of  the  known, 
and  of  connecting  all  the  instruction  with  the  personal  experience  of 
the  pupil.  ...  If  the  teacher  is  to  explain  the  distance  of  the  siin 
from  the  earth,  let  him  ask  .  .   .   '  If  anyone  there  in  the  sun  fired 


PERCEPTION.  329 

Darwin's  voyage,  wondered  at  the  small  boats,  but  took 
the  big  ship  as  a  '  matter  of  course.'  Only  what  we  partly 
know  already  inspires  us  with  a  desire  to  know  more.  The 
more  elaborate  textile  fabrics,  the  vaster  works  in  metal, 
to  most  of  us  are  like  the  air,  the  water,  and  the  ground, 
absolute  existences  which  awaken  no  ideas.  It  is  a  matter 
of  course  that  an  engraving  or  a  copper-plate  inscription 
should  possess  that  degree  of  beauty.  But  if  we  are  shown 
a,  pen-drawing  of  equal  perfection,  our  personal  sympathy 
with  the  difficulty  of  the  task  makes  us  immediately  won- 
der at  the  skill.  The  old  lady  admiring  the  Academician's 
picture  says  to  him:  "  And  is  it  really  all  done  by  hand?" 

The  Physiological  Process  in  Perception. — Enough  has 
now  been  said  to  prove  the  general  law  of  perception, 
which  is  this :  that  ivhilst  part  of  what  we  perceive  comes 
through  our  senses  from  the  object  before  us,  another  part 
(and  it  may  be  the  larger  part)  always  comes  out  of  our 
own  mind. 

At  bottom  this  is  but  a  case  of  the  general  fact  that 
our  nerve-centres  are  organs  for  reacting  on  sense-im- 
pressions, and  that  our  hemispheres,  in  particular,  are  given 
us  that  records  of  our  past  private  experience  may  coop- 
erate in  the  reaction.  Of  course  such  a  general  state- 
ment is  vague.  If  we  try  to  put  an  exact  meaning  into 
it,  what  we  find  most  natural  to  believe  is  that  the  brain 
reacts  by  paths  which  the  previous  experiences  have  worn, 
and  which  make  us  perceive  the  probable  thing,  i.e.,  the 
thing  by  which  on  the  previous  occasions  the  reaction  was 
most  frequently  aroused.  The  reaction  of  the  hemispheres 
consists  in  the  lighting  up  of  a  certain  system  of  paths  by 

off  a  cannon  straight  at  you,  what  should  you  do  ? '  '  Get  out  of  the 
way,'  would  be  the  answer.  'No  need  of  that,' the  teacher  might 
reply.  '  You  may  quietly  go  to  sleep  in  your  room,  and  get  up  again, 
you  may  wait  till  your  confirmation-day,  you  may  learn  a  trade,  and 
grow  as  old  as  I  am, — then  only  will  the  cannon-ball  be  getting  near, 
then  you  may  jump  to  one  side  !  See,  so  great  as  that  is  the  sun's 
distance!'"    (K.  Lange,  Ueber  Apperception,  1879,  p.  76.) 


330  PSYCHOLOGY. 

the  current  entering  from  the  outer  world.  What  corre- 
sponds to  this  mentally  is  a  certain  special  pulse  of  thought, 
the  thought,  namely,  of  that  most  probable  object.  Far- 
ther than  this  in  the  analysis  we  can  hardly  go. 

Hallucinations. — Between  normal  perception  and  illu- 
sion we  have  seen  that  there  is  no  break,  the  process  being 
identically  the  same  in  both.  The  last  illusions  we  con- 
sidered might  fairly  be  called  hallucinations.  We  must  now 
consider  the  false  perceptions  more  commonly  called  by 
that  name.  In  ordinary  parlance  hallucination  is  held  to 
differ  from  illusion  in  that,  whilst  there  is  an  object  really 
there  in  illusion,  in  hallucination  there  is  no  objective 
stimulus  at  all.  We  shall  presently  see  that  this  supposed 
absence  of  objective  stimulus  in  hallucination  is  a  mistake, 
and  that  hallucinations  are  often  only  extremes  of  the  per- 
ceptive process,  in  which  the  secondary  cerebral  reaction  is 
out  of  all  normal  proportion  to  the  peripheral  stimulus 
which  occasions  the  activity.  Hallucinations  usually  ap- 
pear abruptly  and  have  the  character  of  being  forced  upon 
the  subject.  But  they  possess  various  degrees  of  apparent 
objectivity.  One  mistake  in  limine  must  be  guarded 
against.  They  are  often  talked  of  as  images  projected 
outwards  by  mistake.  But  where  an  hallucination  is  com- 
plete, it  is  much  more  than  a  mental  image.  An  hallu- 
cination, subjectively  considered,  is  a  sensation,  as  good  and 
true  a  sensation  as  if  there  were  a  real  object  there.  The 
object  happens  not  to  be  there,  that  is  all. 

The  milder  degrees  of  hallucination  have  been  designa- 
ted as  pseudo-hallucinations.  Pseudo-hallucinations  and 
hallucinations  have  been  sharply  distinguished  from  each 
other  only  within  a  few  years.  From  ordinary  images  of 
memory  and  fancy,  pseudo-hallucinations  differ  in  being 
much  more  vivid,  minute,  detailed,  steady,  abrupt,  and 
spontaneous,  in  the  sense  that  all  feeling  of  our  own  activ- 
ity in  producing  them  is  lacking.  Dr.  Kandmsky  had  a 
patient  who,  after  taking  opium  or  haschisch,  had  abun- 
dant pseudo-hallucinations  and  hallucinations.     As  he  also 


PERCEPTION.  331 

had  strong  visualizing  power  and  was  an  educated  physi- 
cian, the  three  sorts  of  phenomena  could  be  easily  com- 
pared. Although  projected  outwards  (usually  not  farther 
than  the  limit  of  distinctest  vision,  afoot  or  so),  the  pseudo- 
hallucinations  lacked  the  character  of  objective  reality 
which  the  hallucinations  possessed,  but,  unlike  the  pictures 
of  imagination,  it  was  almost  impossible  to  produce  them 
at  will.  Most  of  the  '  voices '  which  people  hear  (whether 
they  give  rise  to  delusions  or  not)  are  pseudo-hallucina- 
tions. They  are  described  as  '  inner '  voices,  although  their 
character  is  entirely  unlike  the  inner  speech  of  the  sub- 
ject with  himself.  I  know  several  persons  who  hear  such 
inner  voices  making  unforeseen  remarks  whenever  they 
grow  quiet  and  listen  for  them.  They  are  a  very  common 
incident  of  delusional  insanity,  and  may  at  last  grow  into 
vivid  or  completely  exteriorized  hallucinations.  The  lat- 
ter are  comparatively  frequent  occurrences  in  sporadic 
form;  and  certain  individuals  are  liable  to  have  them 
often.  ]?rom  the  results  of  the  '  Census  of  Hallucinations/ 
which  was  begun  by  Edmund  Gurney,  it  would  appear 
that,  roughly  speaking,  one  person  at  least  in  every  ten  is 
likely  to  have  had  a  vivid  hallucination  at  some  time  in 
his  life.  The  following  case  from  a  healthy  person  will 
give  an  idea  of  what  these  hallucinations  are: 

"  When  a  girl  of  eighteen,  I  was  one  evening  engaged  in 
a  very  painful  discussion  with  an  elderly  person.  My  dis- 
tress was  so  great  that  I  took  up  a  thick  ivory  knitting- 
needle  that  was  lying  on  the  mantelpiece  of  the  parlor 
and  broke  it  into  small  pieces  as  I  talked.  In  the  midst 
of  the  discussion  I  was  very  wishful  to  know  the  opinion 
of  a  brother  with  whom  I  had  an  unusually  close  relation- 
ship. I  turned  round  and  saw  him  sitting  at  the  farther 
side  of  a  centre-table,  with  his  arms  folded  (an  unusual 
position  with  him),  but,  to  my  dismay,  I  perceived  from 
the  sarcastic  expression  of  his  mouth  that  he  was  not  in 
sympathy  with  me,  was  not  '  taking  my  side,'  as  I  should 


332  PSTCHOLOO  V. 

then  have  expressed  it.     The  surprise  cooled  me,  and  the 
discussion  was  dropped. 

"Some  minutes  after,  having  occasion  to  speak  to  my 
brother,  I  turned  towards  him,  but  he  was  gone.  I  in- 
quired when  he  left  the  room,  and  was  told  that  he  had 
not  been  in  it,  which  I  did  not  believe,  thinking  that  he 
lvid  come  in  for  a  minute  and  had  gone  out  without  being 
noticed.  About  an  hour  and  a  half  afterwards  he  appeared, 
and  convinced  me,  with  some  trouble,  that  lie  had  never 
been  near  the  house  that  evening.  He  is  still  alive  and 
well." 

The  hallucinations  of  fever-delirium  are  a  mixture  of 
pseudo-hallucination,  true  hallucination,  and  illusion. 
Those  of  opium,  haschish,  and  belladonna  resemble  them 
in  this  respect.  The  commonest  hallucination  of  all  is  that 
of  hearing  one's  own  name  called  aloud.  Nearly  one  half 
of  the  sporadic  cases  which  I  have  collected  are  of  this 
sort. 

Hallucination  and  Illusion. — Hallucinations  are  easily 
produced  by  verbal  suggestion  in  hypnotic  subjects.  Thus, 
point  to  a  dot  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  and  call  it  '  General 
Grant's  photograph,'  and  your  subject  will  see  a  photo- 
graph of  the  General  there  instead  of  the  dot.  The  dot 
gives  objectivity  to  the  appearance,  and  the  suggested 
notion  of  the  General  gives  it  form.  Then  magnify  the 
dot  by  a  lens;  double  it  by  a  prism  or  by  nudging  the  eye- 
ball; reflect  it  in  a  mirror;  turn  it  upside-down;  or  wipe 
it  out;  and  the  subject  will  tell  you  that  the  'photograph' 
has  been  enlarged,  doubled,  reflected,  turned  about,  or 
made  to  disappear.  In  M.  Binet's  language,  the  dot  is  the 
outward  point  '/>>  repere  which  is  needed  to  give  objectivity 
to  your  suggestion,  and  without  which  the  latter  will  only 
produce  an  inner  image  in  the  subject's  mind.  M.  Binet  has 
shown  that  such  a  peripheral  point  de  repere  is  used  in  an 
enormous  number,  not  only  of  hypnotic  hallucinations,  but 
of  hallucinations  of  the  insane.  These  latter  are  often  uni- 
lateral; that  is;  the  patient  hears  the  voices  always  on  onp 


PERCEPTION.  333 

side  of  him,  or  sees  the  figure  only  when  a  certain  one  of  his 
eyes  is  open.  In  many  of  these  cases  it  has  been  distinctly 
proved  that  a  morbid  irritation  in  the  internal  ear,  or  an 
opacity  in  the  humors  of  the  eye,  was  the  starting  point  of 
the  current  which  the  patient's  diseased  acoustic  or  optical 
centres  clothed  with  their  peculiar  products  in  the  way  of 
ideas.  Hallucinations  produced  in  this  way  are  '  illusions ' ; 
and  M.  Binet's  theory,  that  all  hallucinations  must  start  in 
the  periphery,  may  be  called  an  attempt  to  reduce  hallucina- 
tion and  illusion  to  one  physiological  type,  the  type,  namely, 
to  which  normal  perception  belongs.  In  every  case,  accord- 
ing to  M.  Binet,  whether  of  perception,  of  hallucination, 
or  of  illusion,  we  get  the  sensational  vividness  by  means  of 
a  current  from  the  peripheral  nerves.  It  may  be  a  mere 
trace  of  a  current.  But  that  trace  is  enough  to  kindle  the 
maximal  process  of  disintegration  in  the  cells  (cf.  p.  310), 
and  to  give  to  the  object  perceived  the  character  of  exter- 
nality. What  the  nature  of  the  object  shall  be  will  depend 
wholly  on  the  particular  system  of  paths  in  which  the  pro- 
cess is  kindled.  Part  of  the  thing  in  all  cases  comes  from 
the  sense  organ,  the  rest  is  furnished  by  the  mind.  But 
we  cannot  by  introspection  distinguish  between  these  parts; 
and  our  only  formula  for  the  result  is  that  the  brain  has 
reacted  on  the  impression  in  the  resulting  way. 

M.  Binet's  theory  accounts  indeed  for  a  multitude  of 
cases,  but  certainly  not  for  all.  The  prism  does  not  always 
double  the  false  appearance,  nor  does  the  latter  always  dis- 
appear when  the  eyes  are  closed.  For  Binet,  an  abnor- 
mally or  exclusively  active  part  of  the  cortex  gives  the 
nature  of  what  shall  appear,  whilst  a  peripheral  sense- 
organ  alone  can  give  the  intensity  sufficient  to  make  it 
appear  projected  into  real  space.  But  since  this  intensity 
is  after  all  but  a  matter  of  degree,  one  does  not  see  why, 
ander  rare  conditions,  the  degree  in  question  might  not 
be  attained  by  inner  causes  exclusively.  In  that  case  we 
should  have  certain  hallucinations  centrally  initiated,  as 
well  as  the  peripherally  initiated  hallucinations  which  are 


334  psycbolooy. 

the  only  sort  that  M.  Binet's  theory  allows.  Tt  seems  prob- 
able on  the  whole,  therefore,  that  centrally  initiated  hallu- 
cinations can  exist.  How  often  they  do  exist  is  another 
question.  The  existence  of  hallucinations  which  affect 
more  than  one  sense  is  an  argument  for  central  initiation. 
For,  grant  that  the  thing  seen  may  have  its  starting  point 
in  the  outer  world,  the  voice  which  it  is  heard  to  utter 
must  be  due  to  an  influence  from  the  visual  region,  i.e. 
must  be  of  central  origin. 

Sporadic  cases  of  hallucination,  visiting  people  only  once 
in  a  lifetime  (which  seem  to  be  a  quite  frequent  type), 
are  on  any  theory  hard  to  understand  in  detail.  They  are 
often  extraordinarily  complete  ;  and  the  fact  tlmt  many  of 
them  are  reported  as  veridical,  that  is,  as  coinciding  with 
real  events,  such  as  accidents,  deaths,  etc.,  of  the  persons 
seen,  is  an  additional  complication  of  the  phenomenon. 
The  first  really  scientific  study  of  hallucination  in  all  its 
possible  bearings,  on  the  basis  of  a  large  mass  of  empirical 
material,  was  begun  by  Mr.  Edmund  Gurney  and  is  con- 
tinued by  other  members  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search; and  the  'Census'  is  now  being  applied  to  several 
countries  under  the  auspices  of  the  International  Congress 
of  Experimental  Psychology.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  out 
of  these  combined  labors  something  solid  will  eventually 
grow.  The  facts  shade  off  into  the  phenomena  of  motor 
automatism,  trance,  etc.;  and  nothing  but  a  wide  compar- 
ative study  can  give  really  instructive  results.* 

*  The  writer  of  the  present  work  is  Agent  of  the  Census  fo> 
America,  and  will  thankfully  receive  accounts  of  cases  of  hallucina 
tion  of  vision,  hearing,  etc.,  of  which  the  reader  may  have  knowledge 


CHAPTER  XXL 
THE  PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE. 

As  adult  thinkers  we  have  a  definite  and  apparently 
instantaneous  knowledge  of  the  sizes,  shapes,  and  dis- 
tances of  the  things  amongst  which  we  live  and  move ; 
and  we  have  moreover  a  practically  definite  notion  of  the 
whole  great  infinite  continuum  of  real  space  in  which  the 
world  swings  and  in  which  all  these  things  are  located. 
Nevertheless  it  seems  obvious  that  the  baby's  world  is 
vague  and  confused  in  all  these  respects.  How  does  our 
definite  knowledge  of  space  grow  up  ?  This  is  one  of  the 
quarrelsome  problems  in  psychology.  This  chapter  must 
be  so  brief  that  there  will  be  no  room  for  the  polemic  and 
historic  aspects  of  the  subject,  and  I  will  state  simply  and 
dogmatically  the  conclusions  which  seem  most  plausible  to 
me. 

The  quality  of  voluminousness  exists  in  all  sensations, 
just  as  intensity  does.  We  call  the  reverberations  of  a 
thunder-storm  more  voluminous  than  the  squeaking  of 
a  slate-pencil;  the  entrance  into  a  warm  bath  gives  our 
skin  a  more  massive  feeling  than  the  prick  of  a  pin;  a 
little  neuralgic  pain,  fine  as  a  cobweb,  in  the  face,  seems 
less  extensive  than  the  heavy  soreness  of  a  boil  or  the  vast 
discomfort  of  a  colic  or  a  lumbago;  and  a  solitary  star 
looks  smaller  than  the  noonday  sky.  Muscular  sensations 
and  semicircular-canal  sensations  have  volume.  Smells 
and  tastes  are  not  without  it;  and  sensations  from  our 
inward  organs  have  it  in  a  marked  degree. 

Repletion  and  emptiness,  suffocation,  palpitation,  head- 
ache, are  examples  of  this,  and  certainly  not  less  spatial  is 
the  consciousness  we  have  of  our  general  bodily  condition 


336  PSYCHOLOGY. 

in  nausea,  fever,  heavy  drowsiness,  and  fatigue.  Our  entire 
cubic  content  seems  then  sensibly  manifest  to  us  as  such, 
and  feels  much  larger  than  any  local  pulsation,  pressure, 
or  discomfort.  Skin  and  retina  are,  however,  the  organs 
in  which  the  space-element  plays  the  most  active  part. 
Not  only  does  the  maximal  vastness  yielded  by  the  retina 
surpass  that  yielded  by  any  other  organ,  hut  the  intricacy 
witli  which  our  attention  can  subdivide  this  vastness  and 
perceive  it  to  be  composed  of  lesser  portions  simultaneously 
coexisting  alongside  of  each  other  is  without  a  parallel 
elsewhere.  The  ear  gives  a  greater  vastness  than  the  skin, 
but  is  considerably  less  able  to  subdivide  it.  The  vastness, 
moreover,  is  as  great  in  one  direction  as  in  another.  Its 
dimensions  are  so  vague  that  in  it  there  is  no  question  as 
yet  of  surface  as  opposed  to  depth;  'volume'  being  the 
best  short  name  for  the  sensation  in  question. 

Sensations  of  different  orders  are  roiighly  comparable 
with  each  other  as  to  their  volumes.  Persons  born  blind 
are  said  to  be  surprised  at  the  largeness  with  which  objects 
appear  to  them  when  their  sight  is  restored.  Franz  says 
of  his  patient  cured  of  cataract:  "He  saw  everything  much 
larger  than  he  had  supposed  from  the  idea  obtained  by  his 
sense  of  touch.  Moving,  and  especially  living,  objects  ap- 
peared very  large."  Loud  sounds  have  a  certain  enormous- 
ness  of  feeling.  '  Glowing'  bodies  as  Hering  says,  give  us  a 
perception  "which  seems  roomy  {raumhaft)  in  comparison 
with  that  of  strictly  surface-color.  A  glowing  iron  looks 
luminous  through  and  through,  and  so  does  a  flame."  The 
interior  of  one's  mouth-cavity  feels  larger  when  explored 
by  the  tongue  than  when  looked  at.  The  crater  of  a 
newly-extracted  tooth,  and  the  movements  of  a  loose  tooth 
in  its  socket,  feel  quite  monstrous.  A  midge  buzzing 
against  the  drum  of  the  ear  will  often  seem  as  big  as  a 
butterfly.  The  pressure  of  the  air  in  the  tympanic  cavity 
upon  the  membrane  gives  an  astonishingly  large  sensation. 

The  voluminous  ness  of  the  feeling  seems  to  bear  very  little 
relation  to  the  size  of  the  organ  that  yields  it.     The  ear  and 


TEE  PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE.  337 

eye  are  comparatively  minute  organs,  yet  they  give  us  feel- 
ings of  great  volume.  The  same  lack  of  exact  proportion 
between  size  of  feeling  and  size  of  organ  affected  obtains 
within  the  limits  of  particular  sensory  organs.  An  object 
appears  smaller  on  the  lateral  portions  of  the  retina  than 
it  does  on  the  fovea,  as  may  be  easily  verified  by  holding 
the  two  forefingers  parallel  and  a  couple  of  inches  apart, 
and  transferring  the  gaze  of  one  eye  from  one  to  the 
other.  Then  the  finger  not  directly  looked  at  will  appear 
to  shrink.  On  the  skin,  if  two  points  kept  equidistant 
(blunted  compass-  or  scissors-points,  for  example)  be  drawn 
along  so  as  really  to  describe  a  pair  of  parallel  lines,  the 
lines  will  appear  farther  apart  in  some  spots  than  in 
others.  If,  for  example,  we  draw  them  across  the  face,  the 
person  experimented  upon  will  feel  as  if  they  began  to 
diverge  near  the  mouth  and  to  include  it  in  a  well-marked 
ellipse. 


Fig.  65  (after  Weber). 

The  dotted  lines  give  the  real  course  of  the  points,  the  continuous  lines  the 
course  as  felt. 

NOW  MY  FIRST  THESIS  IS  THAT  THIS  EXTENSITY,  dis- 
cernible in  each  and  every  sensation,  though  more  developed 
in  some  than  in  others,  is  the  original  sensation  of 
space,  out  of  which  all  the  exact  knowledge  about  space 
that  we  afterwards  come  to  have  is  woven  by  processes  of 
discrimination,  association,  and  selection. 

The  Construction  of  Real  Space. — To  the  babe  who  first 
opens  his  senses  upon  the  world,  though  the  experience  is 
one  of  vastness  or  extensity,  it  is  of  an  extensity  within 


338  PSYCHOLOGY. 

which  no  definite  divisions,  directions,  sizes,  or  distances 
are  vel  marked  out.  Potentially,  the  room  in  which  the 
child  is  born  is  subdivisible  into  a  multitude  of  parts, 
fixed  or  movable,  which  at  any  given  moment  of  time  have 
definite  relations  to  each  other  and  to  his  person.  Poten- 
tials, too,  this  room  taken  as  a  whole  can  be  prolonged  in 
various  directions  by  the  addition  to  it  of  those  farther- 
lying  spaces  which  constitute  the  outer  world.  But  actu- 
ally the  further  spaces  are  unfelt,  and  the  subdivisions  are 
undiscriminated,  by  the  babe;  the  chief  part  of  whose  edu- 
cation during  his  first  year  of  life  consists  in  his  becoming 
acquainted  with  them  and  recognizing  and  identifying 
them  in  detail.  This  process  may  be  called  that  of  the  con- 
struction of  real  space,  as  a  newly  apprehended  object,  out 
of  the  original  chaotic  experiences  of  vastness.  It  consists 
of  several  subordinate  processes: 

First,  the  total  object  of  vision  or  of  feeling  at  any  time 
must  have  smaller  objects  definitely  discriminated  luitliin 

it; 

Secondly,  objects  seen  or  tasted  must  be  identified  with 
objects  felt,  heard,  etc.,  and  rice  versa,  so  that  the  same 
'  t/iiiig'  may  come  to  be  recognized,  although  apprehended 
in  such  widely  differing  ways; 

Third,  the  total  extent  felt  at  any  time  must  be  con- 
ceived as  definitely  located  in  the  midst  of  the  surrounding 
extents  of  which  the  world  consists; 

Fourth,  these  objects  must  appear  arranged  in  definite 
order  in  the  so-called  three  dimensions;  and 

Fifth,  their  relative  sizes  must  be  perceived — in  other 
words,  they  must  be  measured. 

Let  us  take  these  processes  in  regular  order. 

1)  Subdivision  or  Discrimination.  —  Concerning  this 
there  is  not  much  to  be  added  to  what  was  set  forth  in 
( 'hapter  X 1 V.  Moving  parts,  sharp  parts,  brightly  colored 
parts  of  the  total  field  of  perception  '  catch  the  attention ' 
and  are  then  discerned  as  special  objects  surrounded  by 
the  remainder  of  the  field  of  view  or  touch.     That  when 


TEE  PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE.  339 

such  objects  are  discerned  apart  they  should  appear  as 
thus  surrounded,  must  be  set  down  as  an  ultimate  fact  of 
our  sensibility  of  which  no  farther  account  can  be  given. 
Later,  as  one  partial  object  of  this  sort  after  another  has 
become  familiar  and  identifiable,  the  attention  can  be 
caught  by  more  than  one  at  once.  We  then  see  or  feel  a 
number  of  distinct  objects  alongside  of  each  other  in  the 
general  extended  field.  The  '  alongsideness  '  is  in  the  first 
instance  vague — it  may  not  carry  with  it  the  sense  of  defi- 
nite directions  or  distances — and  it  too  must  be  regarded 
as  an  ultimate  fact  of  our  sensibility. 

2)  Coalescence  of  Different  Sensations  into  the  Same 
'Thing/ — When  two  senses  are  impressed  simultaneously 
we  tend  to  identify  their  objects  as  one  thing.  When  a 
conductor  is  brought  near  the  skin,  the  snap  heard,  the 
spark  seen,  and  the  sting  felt,  are  all  located  together  and 
believed  to  be  different  aspects  of  one  entity,  the  '  electric 
discharge.'  The  space  of  the  seen  object  fuses  with  the 
space  of  the  heard  object  and  with  that  of  the  felt  object 
by  an  ultimate  law  of  our  consciousness,  which  is  that  we 
simplify,  unify,  and  identify  as  much  as  we  possibly  can. 
Wfiatever  sensible  data  can  be  attended  to  together  we  locate 
together.  Their  several  extents  seem  one  extent.  The  place 
at  which  each  appears  is  held  to  be  the  same  with  the  place 
at  which  the  others  appear.  This  is  the  first  and  great 
'  act '  by  which  our  world  gets  spatially  arranged. 

In  this  coalescence  in  a  '  thing,'  one  of  the  coalescing 
sensations  is  held  to  be  the  thing,  the  other  sensations  are 
taken  for  its  more  or  less  accidental  properties,  or  modes 
of  appearance.  The  sensation  chosen  to  be  essentially  the 
thing  is  the  most  constant  and  practically  important  of  the 
lot;  most  often  it  is  hardness  or  weight.  But  the  hardness 
or  weight  is  never  without  tactile  bulk;  and  as  we  can 
always  see  something  in  our  hand  when  we  feel  something 
there,  we  equate  the  bulk  felt  with  the  bulk  seen,  and 
thenceforward  this  common  bulk  is  also  apt  to  figure  as 
of  the  essence  of  the  '  thing.'     Frequently  a  shape  so  fig- 


340  PSYCHOLOGY. 

urea,  Bometimes  a  temperature,  a  taste,  etc.;  but  for  the 
must  part  temperature,  smell,  sound,  color,  or  whatever 
other  phenomena  may  vividly  impress  us  simultaneously 
with  the  hulk  felt  or  seen,  figure  among  the  accidents. 
Smell  and  sound  impress  us,  it  is  true,  when  we  neither 
see  nor  touch  the  thing;  but  they  are  strongest  when  we 
see  or  touch,  so  we  locate  the  source  of  these  properties 
within  the  touched  or  seen  space,  whilst  the  properties 
themselves  we  regard  as  overflowing  in  a  weakened  form 
into  the  spaces  filled  by  other  things.  In  all  this,  it  will 
be  observed,  the  sense-data  whose  spaces  coalesce  into  one  are 
yielded  by  different  sense-organs.  Such  data  have  no  ten- 
dency to  displace  each  other  from  consciousness,  but  can 
be  attended  to  together  all  at  once.  Often  indeed  they 
vary  concomitantly  and  reach  a  maximum  together.  We 
may  be  sure,  therefore,  that  the  general  rule  of  our  mind 
is  to  locate  in  each  other  all  sensations  which  are  asso- 
ciated in  simultaneous  experience  and  do  not  interfere 
with  each  other's  perception. 

3)  The  Sense  of  the  Surrounding  World. — Different  im- 
pressions on  the  same  sense-organ  do  interfere  with  each 
other's  perception  and  cannot  well  be  attended  to  at  once. 
Hence  we  do  not  locate  them  in  each  other's  spaces,  but 
arrange  them  in  a  serial  order  of  exteriority ,  each  alongside 
of  the  rest,  in  a  space  larger  titan  that  which  any  one  sensa- 
tion brings.  We  can  usually  recover  anything  lost  from 
our  sight  by  moving  our  eyes  back  in  its  direction;  and 
it  is  through  these  constant  changes  that  every  field  of 
seen  things  comes  at  last  to  be  thought  of  as  always  hav- 
ing a  fringe  of  other  things  possible  to  be  seen  spreading 
in  all  directions  round  about  it.  Meanwhile  the  move- 
ments concomitantly  with  which  the  various  fields  alter- 
nate are  also  felt  and  remembered;  and  gradually  (through 
association)  this  and  that  movement  come  in  our  thought 
to  suggest  this  or  that  extent  of  fresh  objects  introduced. 
Gradually,  too,  since  the  objects  vary  indefinitely  in  kind, 
we  abstract  from  their  several  natures  and  think  separately 


THE  PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE.  341 

of  their  mere  extents,  of  which  extents  the  various  move- 
ments remain  as  the  only  constant  introducers  and  asso- 
ciates. More  and  more,  therefore,  do  we  think  of  move- 
ment and  seen  extent  as  mutually  involving  each  other, 
until  at  last  we  may  get  to  regard  them  as  synonymous; 
and,  empty  space  then  meaning  for  us  mere  room  for  move- 
ment, we  may,  if  we  are  psychologists,  readily  but  errone- 
ously assign  to  the  'muscular  sense*  the  chief  role  in 
perceiving  extensiveness  at  all. 

4)  The  Serial  Order  of  Locations. — The  muscular  sense 
has  much  to  do  with  defining  the  order  of  position  of  things 
seen,  felt,  or  heard.  We  look  at  a  point;  another  point 
upon  the  retina's  margin  catches  our  attention,  and  in  an 
instant  we  turn  the  fovea  upon  it,  letting  its  image  suc- 
cessively fall  upon  all  the  points  of  the  intervening  retinal 
line.  The  line  thus  traced  so  rapidly  by  the  second  point 
is  itself  a  visual  object,  with  the  first  and  second  point  at 
its  respective  ends.  It  separates  the  points,  which  become 
located  by  its  length  with  reference  to  each  other.  If  a 
third  point  catch  the  attention,  more  peripheral  still  than 
the  second  point,  then  a  still  greater  movement  of  the  eye- 
ball and  a  continuation  of  the  line  will  result,  the  second 
point  now  appearing  between  the  first  and  third.  Every 
moment  of  our  life,  peripherally-lying  objects  are  drawing 
lines  like  this  between  themselves  and  other  objects  which 
they  displace  from  our  attention  as  we  bring  them  to  the 
centre  of  our  field  of  view.  Each  peripheral  retinal  point 
comes  in  this  way  to  suggest  a  line  at  the  end  of  which  it 
lies,  a  line  which  a  possible  movement  will  trace;  and  even 
the  motionless  field  of  vision  ends  at  last  by  signifying 
a  system  of  positions  brought  out  by  possible  movements 
between  its  centre  and  all  peripheral  parts. 

It  is  the  same  with  our  skin  and  joints.  By  moving  our 
hand  over  objects  we  trace  lines  of  direction,  and  new  im- 
pressions arise  at  their  ends.  The  '  lines '  are  sometimes  on 
the  articular  surfaces,  sometimes  on  the  skin  as  well;  in 
either  case  they  give  a  definite  order  of  arrangement  to  the 


342  P8YGH0L0Q1. 

successive  objects  between  which  they  intervene.  Similarly 
with  sounds  and  smells.  With  our  heads  in  a  certain  posi- 
tion, a  certain  sound  or  a  certain  smell  is  most  distinct. 
Turning  our  head  makes  this  experience  fainter  and  brings 
auot  her  sound,  or  another  smell,  to  its  maximum.  The  two 
sou  nds  or  smells  are  thus  separated  by  the  movement  located 
at  its  ends,  the  movement  itself  being  realized  as  a  sweep 
through  space  whose  value  is  given  partly  by  the  semi- 
circular-canal feeling,  partly  by  the  articular  cartilages  of 
the  neck,  and  partly  by  the  impressions  produced  upon  the 
eye. 

By  such  general  principles  of  action  as  these  everything 
looked  at,  felt,  smelt,  or  heard  comes  to  be  located  in  a 
more  or  less  definite  position  relatively  to  other  collateral 
things  either  actually  presented  or  only  imagined  as  possi- 
bly there.  I  say  'collateral'  things,  for  I  prefer  not  to 
complicate  the  account  just  yet  with  any  special  considera- 
tion of  the  'third  dimension/  distance,  or  depth,  as  it  has 
been  called. 

3)  The  Measurement  of  Things  in  Terms  of  Each  Other. — 
Here  the  first  thing  that  seems  evident  is  that  we  have  no 
immediate  power  of  comparing  together  with  any  accuracy 
the  extents  revealed  by  different  sensations.  Our  mouth- 
cavity  feels  indeed  to  the  tongue  larger  than  it  feels  to  the 
finger  or  eye,  our  lips  feel  larger  than  a  surface  equal  to 
them  on  our  thigh.  So  much  comparison  is  immediate; 
but  it  is  vague;  and.  for  anything  exact  we  must  resort  to 
other  help. 

The  great  agent  in  comparing  the  extent  felt  by  one  sen- 
sory surface  with  that  felt  by  < mother  is  superposition — 
superposition  of  one  surface  upon  another,  and  superposi- 
Hon  of  one  outer  thing  upon  many  surfaces. 

Two  surfaces  of  skin  superposed,  on  each  other  are  felt 
simultaneously,  and  by  the  law  laid  down  on  p.  339  are 
judged  to  occupy  an  identical  place.  Similarly  of  our 
hand,  when  seen  and  felt  at  the  same  time  by  its  resident 
sensibility. 


THE  PEKCEPT10JSI   OF  HP  AGE.  343 

In  these  identifications  and  reductions  of  the  many  to  the 
one  it  must  be  noticed  that  when  the  resident  sensations  of 
largeness  of  two  opposed  surfaces  conflict,  one  of  the  sensa- 
tions is  chosen,  as  the  true  standard  and  the  other  treated  as 
illusory.  Thus  an  empty  tooth-socket  is  believed  to  be  really 
smaller  than  the  finger-tip  which  it  will  not  admit,  al- 
though it  may  feel  larger;  and  in  general  it  maybe  said 
that  the  hand,  as  the  almost  exclusive  organ  of  palpation, 
gives  its  own  magnitude  to  the  other  parts,  instead  of  hav- 
ing its  size  determined  by  them. 

But  even  though  exploration  of  one  surface  by  another 
were  impossible,  we  could  always  measure  our  various  sur- 
faces against  each  other  by  applying  the  same  extended 
object  first  to  one  and  then  to  another.  We  might  of  course 
at  first  suppose  that  the  object  itself  waxed  and  waned  as 
it  glided  from  one  place  to  another  (cf.  above,  Fig.  65) ;  but 
the  principle  of  simplifying  as  much  as  possible  our  world 
would  soon  drive  us  out  of  that  assumption  into  the  easier 
one  that  objects  as  a  rule  keep  their  sizes,  and  that  most  of 
our  sensations  are  affected  by  errors  for  which  a  constant 
allowance  must  be  made. 

In  the  retina  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
bignesses  of  two  impressions  (lines  or  blotches)  falling  on 
different  regions  are  at  first  felt  to  stand  in  any  exact 
mutual  ratio.  But  if  the  impressions  come  from  the  same 
object,  then  we  might  judge  their  sizes  to  be  just  the  same. 
This,  however,  only  when  the  relation  of  the  object  to  the 
eye  is  believed  to  be  on  the  whole  unchanged.  When  the 
object,  by  moving,  changes  its  relations  to  the  eye,  the  sen- 
sation excited  by  its  image  even  on  the  same  retinal  region 
becomes  so  fluctuating  that  we  end  by  ascribing  no  abso- 
lute import  whatever  to  the  retinal  space-feeling  which  at 
any  moment  we  may  receive.  So  complete  does  this  over- 
looking of  retinal  magnitude  become  that  it  is  next  to 
impossible  to  compare  the  visual  magnitudes  of  objects  at 
different  distances  without  making  the  experiment  of 
superposition.     We  cannot  say  beforehand  how  much  of  a 


344  PSYCHOLOGY. 

distant  house  or  tree  our  finger  will  cover.  The  various 
answers  to  the  familiar  question,  How  large  is  the  moon  ? 
answers  which  vary  from  a  cartwheel  to  a  wafer — illus- 
trate this  most  strikingly.  The  hardest  part  of  the  train- 
ing of  a  young  draughtsman  is  his  learning  to  feel  directly 
the  retinal  (i.e.  primitively  sensible)  magnitudes  which  the 
different  objects  in  the  field  of  view  subtend.  To  do  this 
ho  must  recover  what  Ruskin  calls  the  '  innocence  of  the 
6ye  »_i  hat  is,  a  sort  of  childish  perception  of  stains  of 
color  merely  as  such,  without  consciousness  of  what  they 
mean. 

With  the  rest  of  us  this  innocence  is  lost.  Out  of  all  the 
visual  magnitudes  of  each  known  object  we  have  selected 
one  as  the  'real'  one  to  think  of,  and  degraded  all  the 
others  to  serve  as  its  signs.  This  real  magnitude  is  deter- 
mined by  aesthetic  and  practical  interests.  It  is  that  which 
we  o-et  when  the  object  is  at  the  distance  most  propitious 
for  exact  visual  discrimination  of  its  details.  This  is  the 
distance  at  which  we  hold  anything  we  are  examining. 
Farther  than  this  we  see  it  too  small,  nearer  too  large.  And 
the  larger  and  the  smaller  feeling  vanish  in  the  act  of  sug- 
gesting this  one,  their  more  important  meaning.  As  I  look 
along  the  dining-table  I  overlook  the  fact  that  the  farther 
plates  and  glasses  feel  so  much  smaller  than  my  own,  for  I 
know  that  they  are  all  equal  in  size;  and  the  feeling  of 
them,  which  is  a  present  sensation,  is  eclipsed  in  the  glare 
of  the  knowledge,  which  is  a  merely  imagined  one. 

It  is  the  same  with  shape  as  with  size.  Almost  all  the 
visible  shapes  of  things  are  what  we  call  perspective  '  dis- 
tortions.' Square  table-tops  constantly  present  two  acute 
and  two  obtuse  angles;  circles  drawn  on  our  wall-papers, 
our  carpets,  or  on  sheets  of  paper,  usually  show  like  ellipses; 
parallels  approach  as  they  recede;  human  bodies  are  fore- 
shortened; and  the  transitions  from  one  to  another  of  these 
altering  forms  are  infinite  and  continual.  Out  of  the  flux, 
however,  one  phase  always  stands  prominent.  It  is  the 
form  the  object  has  when  we  see  it  easiest  and  best:  and 


THE-  PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE.  345 

that  is  when  our  eyes  and  the  object  both  are  in  what  may 
be  called  the  normal  position.  In  this  position  our  head  is 
upright  and  our  optic  axes  either  parallel  or  symmetrically 
convergent;  the  plane  of  the  object  is  perpendicular  to  the 
visual  plane;  and  if  the  object  is  one  containing  many 
lines,  it  is  turned  so  as  to  make  them,  as  far  as  possible, 
either  parallel  or  perpendicular  to  the  visual  plane.  In  this 
situation  it  is  that  we  compare  all  shapes  with  each  other; 
here  every  exact  measurement  and  every  decision  is  made. 

Most  sensations  are  signs  to  us  of  other  sensations  whose 
space-value  is  held  to  be  more  real.  The  thing  as  it  ivould 
appear  to  the  eye  if  it  were  in  the  normal  position  is  what 
we  think  of  whenever  we  get  one  of  the  other  optical  views. 
Only  as  represented  in  the  normal  position  do  we  believe 
we  see  the  object  as  it  is ;  elsewhere,  only  as  it  seems. 
Experience  and  custom  soon  teach  us,  however,  that  the 
seeming  appearance  passes  into  the  real  one  by  continuous 
gradations.  They  teach  us,  moreover,  that  seeming  and 
being  may  be  strangely  interchanged.  Now  a  real  circle 
may  slide  into  a  seeming  ellipse;  now  an  ellipse  may,  by 
sliding  in  the  same  direction,  become  a  seeming  circle; 
now  a  rectangular  cross  grows  slant-legged;  now  a  slant- 
legged  one  grows  rectangular. 

Almost  any  form  in  oblique  vision  may  be  thus  a  deriva- 
tive of  almost  any  other  in  ' primary'  vision;  and  we  must 
learn,  when  we  get  one  of  the  former  appearances,  to  trans- 
late it  into  the  appropriate  one  of  the  latter  class;  we  must 
learn  of  what  optical '  reality '  it  is  one  of  the  optical  signs. 
Having  learned  this,  we  do  but  obey  that  law  of  economy 
or  simplification  which  dominates  our  whole  psychic  life, 
when  we  think  exclusively  of  the  ' reality'  and  ignore  a? 
much  as  our  consciousness  will  let  us  the  'sign'  by  which 
we  came  to  apprehend  it.  The  signs  of  each  probable  real 
thing  being  multiple  and  the  thing  itself  one  and  fixed, 
we  gain  the  same  mental  relief  by  abandoning  the  former 
for  the  latter  that  we  do  when  we  abandon  mental  images, 
with  all  their  fluctuating  characters,  for  the  definite  and 


346  PSYCHOLOGY. 

unchangeable  name*  which  they  suggest.  The  selection  of 
the  several  'normal'  appearances  from  out  of  the  jungle 
of  our  optical  experiences,  to  serve  as  the  real  sights  of 
which  we  shall  think,  has  thus  some  analogy  to  the  habit  of 
thinking  in  words,  in  that  by  both  we  substitute  terms  few 
and  fixed  for  terms  manifold  and  vague. 

If  an  optical  sensation  can  thus  be  a  mere  sign  to  recall 
another  sensation  of  the  same  sense,  judged  more'  real,  a 
fortiori  can  sensations  of  one  sense  be  signs  of  realities 
which  are  objects  of  another.  Smells  and  tastes  make  ua 
believe  the  visible  cologne-bottle,  strawberry,  or  cheese  to 
be  there.  Sights  suggest  objects  of  touch,  touches  suggest 
objects  of  sight,  etc.  In  all  this  substitution  and  sugges- 
tive recall  the  only  law  that  holds  good  is  that  in  general 
the  most  interesting  of  the  sensations  which  the  'thing' 
can  give  us  is  held  to  represent  its  real  nature  most  truly. 
It  is  a  case  of  the  selective  activity  mentioned  on  p.  170  if. 

The  Third  Dimension  or  Distance. — This  service  of  sensa- 
tions as  mere  signs,  to  be  ignored  when  thsy  have  evoked 
the  other  sensations  which  are  their  significates,  was 
noticed  first  by  Berkeley  in  his  new  theory  of  vision.  He 
dwelt  particularly  on  the  fact  that  the  signs  were  not 
natural  signs,  but  properties  of  the  object  merely  associ- 
ated by  experience  with  the  more  real  aspects  of  it  which 
they  recall.  The  tangible  '  feel '  of  a  thing,  and  the  '  look ' 
of  it  to  the  eye,  have  absolutely  no  point  in  common,  said 
Berkeley;  and  if  I  think  of  the  look  of  it  when  I  get  the 
feel,  or  think  of  the  feel  when  I  get  the  look,  that  is  merely 
due  to  the  fact  that  I  have  on  so  many  previous  occasions 
had  the  two  sensations  at  once.  When  we  open  our  eyes, 
for  example,  we  think  Ave  see  how  far  off  the  object  is. 
But  this  feeling  of  distance,  according  to  Berkeley,  cannot 
possibly  be  a  retinal  sensation,  for  a  point  in  outer  space 
can  only  impress  our  retina  by  the  single  dot  which  it 
projects  '  in  the  fund  of  the  eye,'  and  this  dot  is  the  same 
for  all  distances.  Distance  from  the  eye,  Berkeley  con- 
sidered not  to  be  an  optical  object  at  all,  but  an  object  of 


THE  PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE.  347 

touch,  of  which  we  have  optical  signs  of  various  sorts,  such 
as  the  image's  apparent  magnitude,  its  '  faintness '-  or  '  con- 
fusion/ and  the  '  strain '  of  accommodation  and  conver- 
gence. By  distance  being  an  object  of  'touch/  Berkeley 
meant  that  our  notion  of  it  consists  in  ideas  of  the  amount 
of  muscular  movement  of  arm  or  legs  which  would  be 
required  to  place  our  hand  upon  the  object.  Most  authors 
have  agreed  with  Berkeley  that  creatures  unable  to  move 
either  their  eyes  or  limbs  would  have  no  notion  whatever 
of  distance  or  the  third  dimension. 

This  opinion  seems  to  me  unjustifiable.  I  cannot  get 
over  the  fact  that  all  our  sensations  are  of  volume,  and  that 
the  primitive  field  of  view  (however  imperfectly  distance 
may  be  discriminated  or  measured  in  it)  cannot  be  of 
something  flat,  as  these  authors  unanimously  maintain. 
Nor  can  I  get  over  the  fact  that  distance,  when  I  see  it,  is 
a  genuinely  optical  feeling,  even  though  I  be  at  a  loss  to 
assign  any  one  physiological  process  in  the  organ  of  vision 
to  the  varying  degrees  of  which  the  variations  of  the  feel- 
ing  uniformly  correspond.  It  is  awakened  by  all  the  op* 
tical  signs  which  Berkeley  mentioned,  and  by  more  besides, 
such  as  Wheatstone's  binocular  disparity,  and  by  the  par- 
allax which  follows  on  slightly  moving  the  head.  When 
awakened,  however,  it  seems  optical,  and  not  heteroge- 
neous with  the  other  two  dimensions  of  the  visual  field. 

The  mutual  equivalencies  of  the  distance-dimension  with 
the  up-and-down  and  right-to-left  dimensions  of  the  field 
of  view  can  easily  be  settled  without  resorting  to  experi- 
ences of  touch.  A  being  reduced  to  a  single  eyeball 
would  perceive  the  same  tridimensional  world  which  ,v<.> 
do,  if  he  had  our  intellectual  powers.  For  fhe  same  movi  ng 
things,  by  alternately  covering  different  parts  of  his  retina, 
would  determine  the  mutual  equivalencies  of  th-j  first  two 
dimensions  of  the  field  of  view;  and  by  exciting  the  physi- 
ological cause  of  his  perception  of  depth  in  various  degrees, 
they  would  establish  a  scale  of  equivalency  between  the 
first  two  and  the  third. 


348  PSYCHOLOGY. 

First  of  all,  one  of  the  sensations  given  by  the  object 
would  be  chosen  to  represent  its  '  real '  size  and  shape,  in 
accordance  with  the  principles  so  lately  laid  down.     One 
sensation   would   measure   the   'thing'   present,  and   the 
'thing' would  measure  the  other  sensations — the  periph- 
eral parts  of  the  retina  would  be  equated  Avith  the  cen- 
tral  by   receiving   the   image   of   the  same  object.     This 
needs  no  elucidation  in  case  the  object  does  not  change  its 
distance  or  its  front.     But  suppose,  to  take  a  more  compli- 
cated case,  that  the  object  is  a  stick,  seen  first  in  its  whole 
length,  and  then  rotated  round  one  of  its  ends;  let  this 
fixed  end  be  the  one  near  the  eye.     In  this  movement  the 
stick's  image  will  grow  progressively  shorter;  its  farther 
end  will  appear  less  and  less  separated  laterally  from  its 
fixed  near  end;  soon  it  will  be  screened  by  the  latter,  and 
then  reappear  on  the  opposite  side,  the  image  there  finally 
resuming  its  original  length.     Suppose  this  movement  to 
become  a  familiar  experience;  the  mind  will  presumably 
react  upon  it   after  its  usual  fashion   (which   is  that  of 
unifying  all  data  which  it  is  in  any  way  possible  to  unify), 
and  consider  it  the  movement  of  a  constant  object  rather 
than  the  transformation  of  a  fluctuating  one.     Now,  the 
sensation  of  depth  which  it  receives  during  the  experience 
is  awakened  more  by  the  far  than  by  the  near  end  of  the 
object.     But  how  much  depth  ?     What  shall  measure  its 
amount?     Why,  at  the  moment  the  far  end  is  about  to  be 
eclipsed,  the  difference  of  its  distance  from  the  near  end's 
distance  must  be  judged  equal  to  the  stick's  whole  length; 
but  that  length  has  already  been  seen  and  measured  by  a 
certain  visual  sensation  of  breadth.     So  we  find  that  given 
amount*  of  the  visual  depth-feeling  become  signs  of  given 
amounts  of  the  visual  breadth-feeling,  depth  becoming  equated 
with  breadth.     The  measurement  of  distance  is,  as  Berkeley 
truly  said,  a   result  of  suggestion   and  experience.     But 
visual  experience  alone  is  adequate  to  produce  it,  and  this  he 
erroneously  denied. 


THE  PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE.  349 

The  Part  played  by  the  Intellect  in  Space-perception. — 
But  although  Berkeley  was  wrong  in  his  assertion  that  out 
of  optical  experience  alone  no  perception  of  distance  can 
be  evolved,  he  gave  a  great  impetus  to  psychology  by 
showing  how  originally  incoherent  and  incommensurable 
in  respect  of  their  extensiveness  our  different  sensations 
are,  and  how  our  actually  so  rapid  space-perceptions  are 
almost  altogether  acquired  by  education.  Touch-space  is 
one  world ;  sight-space  is  another  world.  The  two  worlds 
have  no  essential  or  intrinsic  congruence,  and  only  through 
the  '  association  of  ideas '  do  we  know  what  a  seen  object 
signifies  in  terms  of  touch.  Persons  with  congenital  cata- 
racts relieved  by  surgical  aid,  whose  world  until  the  opera- 
tion has  been  a  world  of  tangibles  exclusively,  are  ludi- 
crously unable  at  first  to  name  any  of  the  objects  which 
newly  fall  upon  their  eye.  "It  might  very  well  be  a 
horse,"  said  the  latest  patient  of  this  sort  of  whom  we  have 
an  account,  when  a  10-litre  bottle  was  held  up  a  foot  from 
his  face.*  Neither  do  such  patients  have  any  accurate 
notion  in  motor  terms  of  the  relative  distances  of  things 
from  their  eyes.  All  such  confusions  very  quickly  dis- 
appear with  practice,  and  the  novel  optical  sensations 
translate  themselves  into  the  familiar  language  of  touch. 
The  facts  do  not  prove  in  the  least  that  the  optical  sensa- 
tions are  not  spatial,  but  only  that  it  needs  a  subtler  sense 
for  analogy  than  most  people  have,  to  discern  the  same 
spatial  aspects  and  relations  in  them  which  previously- 
known  tactile  and  motor  experiences  have  yielded. 

Conclusion. — To  sum  up,  the  whole  history  of  space-per- 
ception is  explicable  if  we  admit  on  the  one  hand  sensa- 
tions with  certain  amounts  of  extensity  native  to  them, 
and  on  the  other  the  ordinary  powers  of  discrimination, 
selection,  and  association  in  the  mind's  dealings  with 
them.     The  fluctuating   import   of   many  of  our  optical 

*  Cf.  Kaehlrnann  in  Zeitschrift  fur  Psychol,  und  Physiol,  der  Sin- 
nesorgane,  n.  79. 


350  PSYCHOLOGY. 

sensations,  the  same  sensation  being  so  ambiguous  as  re- 
gards size,  shape,  locality,  and  the  like,  has  led  many  to 
believe  that  such  attributes  as  these  could  not  possibly  be 
the  result  of  sensation  at  all,  but  must  come  from  some 
higher  power  of  intuition,  synthesis,  or  whatever  it  might 
be  called.  But  the  fact  that  a  present  sensation  can  at  any 
time  become  the  sign  of  a  represented  one  judged  to  be  more 
real,  sufficiently  accounts  for  all  the  phenomena  without 
the  need  of  supposing  that  the  quality  of  extensity  is 
created  out  of  non-extensive  experiences  by  a  super-sensa- 
tional faculty  of  the  mind. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 
REASONING. 

What  Reasoning  is. — We  talk  of  man  being  the  rational 
animal;  and  the  traditional  intellectuaiist  philosophy  has 
always  made  a  great  point  of  treating  the  brutes  as  wholly 
irrational  creatures.  Nevertheless,  it  is  by  no  means  easy 
to  decide  just  what  is  meant  by  reason,  or  how  the  pe- 
culiar thinking  process  called  reasoning  differs  from  other 
thought-sequences  which  may  lead  to  similar  results. 

Much  of  our  thinking  consists  of  trains  of  images  sug- 
gested one  by  another,  of  a  sort  of  spontaneous  revery  of 
which  it  seems  likely  enough  that  the  higher  brutes  should 
be  capable.  This  sort  of  thinking  leads  nevertheless  to 
rational  conclusions,  both  practical  and  theoretical.  The 
links  between  'the  terms  are  either ■'  contiguity  '  or  ' similar- 
ity,' and  with  a  mixture  of  both  these  things  we  can  hardly 
be  very  incoherent.  As  a  rule,  in  this  sort  of  irresponsible 
thinking,  the  terms  which  fall  to  be  coupled  together  are 
empirical  concretes,  not  abstractions.  A  sunset  may  call 
up  the  vessel's  deck  from  which  I  saw  one  last  summer, 
the  companions  of  my  voyage,  my  arrival  into  port,  etc.; 
or  it  may  make  me  think  of  solar  myths,  of  Hercules'  and 
Hector's  funeral  pyres,  of  Homer  and  whether  he  could 
write,  of  the  Greek  alphabet,  etc.  If  habitual  contiguities 
predominate,  we  have  a  prosaic  mind;  if  rare  contiguities, 
or  similarities,  have  free  play,  we  call  the  person  fanciful, 
poetic,  or  witty.  But  the  thought  as  a  rule  is  of  matters 
taken  in  their  entirety.  Having  been  thinking  of  one,  we 
find  later  that  wft  are  thinking  of  another,  to  which  we  have 
been  lifted  along,  we  hardly  know  how.     If  an  abstract 


352  PSYCHOLOGY. 

quality  figures  in  the  procession,  it  arrests  our  attention 
but  for  a  moment,  and  fades  into  something  else;  and  is 
never  very  abstract.  Thus,  in  thinking  of  the  sun-myths, 
we  may  have  a  gleam  of  admiration  at  the  gracefulness  of 
the  primitive  human  mind,  or  a  moment  of  disgust  at  the 
narrowness  of  modern  interpreters.  But,  in  the  main,  we 
think  less  of  qualities  than  of  concrete  things,  real  or  pos- 
sible, just  as  we  may  experience  them. 

Our  thought  here  may  be  rational,  but  it  is  not  reasoned, 
is  not  reasoning  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term.  In  reason- 
ing, although  our  results  may  be  thought  of  as  concrete 
things,  they  are  not  suggested  immediately  by  other  concrete 
things,  as  in  the  trains  of  simply  associative  thought. 
They  are  linked  to  the  concretes  which  precede  them  by 
intermediate  steps,  and  these  steps  are  formed  by  abstract 
general  characters  articulately  denoted  and  expressly  ana- 
lyzed out.  A  thing  inferred  by  reasoning  need  neither 
have  been  an  habitual  associate  of  the  datum  from  which 
we  infer  it,  nor  need  it  be  similar  to  it.  It  may  be  a  thing 
entirely  unknown  to  our  previous  experience,  something 
which  no  simple  association  of  concretes  could  ever  have 
evoked.  The  great  difference,  in  fact,  between  that  sim- 
pler kind  of  rational  thinking  which  consists  in  the  con- 
crete objects  of  past  experience  merely  suggesting  each 
other,  and  reasoning  distinctively  so  called,  is  this:  that 
whilst  the  empirical  thinking  is  only  reproductive,  reason- 
ing is  productive.  An  empirical,  or  '  rule-of-thnmb,' 
thinker  can  deduce  nothing  from  data  with  whose  beha- 
vior and  associates  in  the  concrete  he  is  unfamiliar.  But 
put  a  reasoner  amongst  a  set  of  concrete  objects  which  he 
has  neither  seen  nor  heard  of  before,  and  with  a  little  time, 
if  he  is  a  good  reasoner,  he  will  make  such  inferences  from 
them  as  will  quite  atone  for  his  ignorance.  Reasoning 
helps  us  out  of  unprecedented  situations — situations  for 
which  all  our  common  associative  wisdom,  all  the  '  educa- 
tion '  which  we  share  in  common  with  the  beasts,  leaves  us 
without  resource. 


REASONING.  353 

Exact  Definition  of  it. — Let  us  make  this  ability  to  deal 
with  novel  data  the  technical  differentia  of  reasoning. 
This  will  sufficiently  mark  it  out  from  common  associative 
thinking,  and  will-  immediately  enable  us  to  say  just  what 
peculiarity  it  contains. 

It  contains  analysis  and  abstraction.  Whereas  the 
merely  empirical  thinker  stares  at  a  fact  in  its  entirety, 
and  remains  helpless,  or  gets  '  stuck/  if  it  suggests  no  con- 
comitant or  similar,  the  reasoner  breaks  it  up  and  notices 
some  one  of  its  separate  attributes.  This  attribute  he 
takes  to  be  the  essential  part  of  the  whole  fact  before  him. 
This  attribute  has  properties  or  consequences  which  the 
fact  until  then  was  not  known  to  have,  but  which,  now 
that  it  is  noticed  to  contain  the  attribute,  it  must  have. 

Call  the  fact  or  concrete  datum  S; 
the  essential  attribute  M; 
the  attribute's  property  P. 

Then  the  reasoned  inference  of  P  from  S  cannot  be  made 
without  M's  intermediation.  The  '  essence '  M  is  thus  that 
third  or  middle  term  in  the  reasoning  which  a  moment  ago 
was  pronounced  essential.  For  his  original  concrete  S  the 
reasoner  substitutes  its  abstract  property  M.  What  is  true 
of  M,  what  is  coupled  with  M,  thereupon  holds  true  of  S, 
is  coupled  with  S.  As  M  is  properly  one  of  the  parts  of 
the  entire  S,  reasoning  may  then  be  very  well  defined  as 
the  substitution  of  parts  and  their  implications  or  conse- 
quences for  zvholes.  And  the  art  of  the  reasoner  will  con- 
sist of  two  stages : 

First,  sagacity,  or  the  ability  to  discover  what  part,  M, 
lies  embedded  in  the  whole  S  which  is  before  him; 

Second,  learning,  or  the  ability  to  recall  promptly  M's 
consequences,  concomitants,  or  implications. 

If  we  glance  at  the  ordinary  syllogism — 

Mis  P; 
S  isM; 
.'.     S  isP 


354  PSYCHOLOGY. 

—we  see  that  the  second  or  minor  premise,  the  'subsump- 
tion'  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  is  the  one  requiring  the 
sagacity;  the  first  or  major  the  one  requiring  the  fertility, 
or°fulness  of  learning.  Usually  the  learning  is  more  apt  to 
be  ready  than  the  sagacity,  the  ability  to  seize  fresh  aspects 
in  concrete  things  being  rarer  than  the  ability  to  learn  old 
rules;  so  that,  in  most  actual  cases  of  reasoning,  the  minor 
premise,  or  the  way  of  conceiving  the  subject,  is  the  one 
that  makes  the  novel  step  in  thought.  This  is,  to  be  sure, 
not  always  the  case;  for  the  fact  that  M  carries  P  with  it 
may  also  be  unfamiliar  and  now  formulated  for  the  first 

time. 

The  perception  that  S  is  M  is  a  mode'  of  conceiving  S. 
The  statement  that  M  is  P  is  an  abstract  or  general  propo- 
sition.    A  word  about  both  is  necessary. 

What  is  meant  by  a  Mode  of  Conceiving.— When  we  con- 
ceive of  S  merely  as  M  (of  vermilion  merely  as  a  mercury- 
compound,  for  example),  we  neglect  all  the  other  attri- 
butes which  it  may  have,  and  attend  exclusively  to  this 
one.  We  mutilate  the  fulness  of  S's  reality.  Every  reality 
has  an  infinity  of  aspects  or  properties.  Even  so  simple  a 
fact  as  a  line  which  you  trace  in  the  air  may  be  considered 
in  respect  to  its  form,  its  length,  its  direction,  and  its  loca- 
tion. When  we  reach  more  complex  facts,  the  number  of 
ways  in  which  we  may  regard  them  is  literally  endless. 
Vermilion  is  not  only  a  mercury-compound,  it  is  vividly 
red,  heavy,  and  expensive,  it  comes  from  China,  and  so  on, 
ad  infinitum.  All  objects  are  well-springs  of  properties, 
which  are  only  little  by  little  developed  to  our  knowledge, 
and  it  is  truly  said  that  to  know  one  thing  thoroughly 
would  be  to  know  the  whole  universe.  Mediately  or  im- 
mediately, that  one  thing  is  related  to  everything  else;  and 
to  know  all  about  it,  all  its  relations  need  be  known.  But 
each  relation  forms  one  of  its  attributes,  one  angle  by 
which  some  one  may  conceive  it,  and  while  so  conceiving 
it  may  ignore  the  rest  of  it.  A  man  is  such  a  complex 
fact.     But  out  of  the  complexity  all  that  an  army  com- 


REASONING.  355 

rnissary  picks  out  as  important  for  his  purposes  is  his  prop- 
erty of  eating  so  many  pounds  a  day;  the  general,  of 
marching  so  many  miles;  the  chair-maker,  of  having  such 
a  shape;  the  orator,  of  responding  to  such  and  such  feel- 
ings; the  theatre-manager,  of  being  willing  to  pay  just 
such  a  price,  and  no  more,  for  an  evening's  amusement. 
Each  of  these  persons  singles  out  the  particular  side  of  the 
entire  man  which  has  a  bearing  on  his  concerns,  and  not 
till  this  side  is  distinctly  and  separately  conceived  can  the 
proper  practical  conclusions  for  that  reasoner  be  drawn; 
and  when  they  are  drawn  the  man's  other  attributes  may 
be  ignored. 

All  ways  of  conceiving  a  concrete  fact,  if  they  are  true 
ways  at  all,  are  equally  true  ways.  There  is  no  property 
absolutely  essential  to  any  one  thing.  The  same  prop- 
erty which  figures  as  the  essence  of  a  thing  on  one  occasion 
becomes  a  very  inessential  feature  upon  another.  Now 
that  I  am  writing,  it  is  essential  that  I  conceive  my  paper 
as  a  surface  for  inscription.  If  I  failed  to  do  that,  T 
should  have  to  stop  my  work.  But  if  I  wished  to  light  a 
fire,  and  no  other  materials  were  by,  the  essential  way  of 
conceiving  the  paper  would  be  as  combustible  material; 
and  I  need  then  have  no  thought  of  any  of  its  other  des- 
tinations. It  is  really  all  that  it  is :  a  combustible,  a  writ- 
ing surface,  a  thin  thing,  a  hydrocarbonaceous  thing,  a 
thing  eight  inches  one  way  and  ten  another,  a  thing  just 
one  furlong  east  of  a  certain  stone  in  my  neighbor's  field, 
an  American  thing,  etc.,  etc.,  ad  infinitum.  Whichever 
one  of  these  aspects  of  its  being  I  temporarily  class  it 
under  makes  me  unjust  to  the  other  aspects.  But  as  I 
always  am  classing  it  under  one  aspect  or  another,  I  am 
always  unjust,  always  partial,  always  exclusive.  My  ex- 
cuse is  necessity — the  necessity  which  my  finite  and  prac- 
tical nature  lays  upon  me.  My  thinking  is  first  and  last 
and  always  for  the  sake  of  my  doing,  and  I  can  only  do  one 
thing  at  a  time.  A  God  who  is  supposed  to  drive  the 
whole   universe   abreast   may  also   be   supposed,  without 


356  PSYCHOLOGY. 

detriment  to  his  activity,  to  see  all  parts  of  it  at  once  and 
without  emphasis.  But  were  our  human  attention  so  to 
disperse  itself,  we  should  simply  stare  vacantly  at  things  at 
large  and  forfeit  our  opportunity  of  doing  any  particular 
act.  Mr.  Warner,  in  his  Adirondack  story,  shot  a  hear  hy 
aiming,  not  at  his  eye  or  heart,  hut  'at  him  generally.' 
But  we  cannot  aim  'generally'  at  the  universe;  or  if  we 
do,  we  miss  our  game.  Our  scope  is  narrow,  and  we  must 
attack  things  piecemeal,  ignoring  the  solid  fulness  in  which 
the  elements  of  Nature  exist,  and  stringing  one  after  an- 
other of  them  together  in  a  serial  way,  to  suit  our  little 
interests  as  they  change  from  hour  to  hour.  In  this,  the 
partiality  of  one  moment  is  partly  atoned  for  hy  the  differ- 
ent sort  of  partiality  of  the  next.  To  me  now,  writing 
these  words,  emphasis  and  selection  seem  to  be  the  essence 
of  the  human  mind.  In  other  chapters  other  qualities 
have  seemed,  and  will  again  seem,  more  important  parts  of 
psychology. 

Men  are  so  ingrainedly  partial  that,  for  common-sense 
and  scholasticism  (which  is  only  common-sense  grown  ar- 
ticulate), the  notion  that  there  is  no  one  quality  genuinely, 
absolutely,  and  exclusively  essential  to  anything  is  almost 
unthinkable.  "A  thing's  essence  makes  it  what  it  is. 
Without  an  exclusive  essence  it  would  be  nothing  in  par- 
ticular, would  be  quite  nameless,  we  could  not  say  it  was 
this  rather  than  that.  What  you  write  on,  for  example, — 
why  talk  of  its  being  combustible,  rectangular,  and  the 
like,  when  you  know  that  these  are  mere  accidents,  and 
that  what  it  really  is,  and  was  made  to  be,  is  just  paper 
and  nothing  else  ? "  The  reader  is  pretty  sure  to  make 
some  such  comment  as  this.  But  he  is  himself  merely 
insisting  on  an  aspect  of  the  thing  which  suits  his  own 
petty  purpose,  that  of  naming  the  thing;  or  else  on  an 
aspect  which  suits  the  manufacturer's  purpose,  that  of 
producing  an  article  for  which  there  is  a  vulgar  demand. 
Meanwhile  the  reality  overflows  these  purposes  at  every 
pore.     Our  usual  purpose  with  it,  our  commonest  title  for 


REASONING.  357 

it,  and  the  properties  which  this  title  suggests,  have  in 
reality  nothing  sacramental.  They  characterize  us  more 
than  they  characterize  the  thing.  But  we  are  so  stuck  in 
our  prejudices,  so  petrified  intellectually,  that  to  our  vul- 
garest  names,  with  their  suggestions,  we  ascribe  an  eternal 
and  exclusive  worth.  The  thing  must  be,  essentially, 
what  the  vulgarest  name  connotes;  what  less  usual  names 
connote,  it  can  be  only  in  an  '  accidental '  and  relatively 
unreal  sense.* 

Locke  undermined  the  fallacy.  But  none  of  his  suc- 
cessors, so  far  as  I  know,  have  radically  escaped  it,  or  seen 
that  the  only  meaning  of  essence  is  teleological,  and  that 
classification  and  conception  are  purely  teleological  weap- 
ons of  the  mind.  The  essence  of  a  thing  is  that  one  of  its 
properties  which  is  so  important  for  my  interests  that  in 
comparison  with  it  I  may  neglect  the  rest.  Amongst  those 
other  things  which  have  this  important  property  I  class  it, 
after  this  property  I  name  it,  as  a  thing  endowed  with  this 
property  I  conceive  it ;  and  whilst  so  classing,  naming,  and 
conceiving  it,  all  other  truth  about  it  becomes  to  me  as 
naught.  The  properties  which  are  important  vary  from 
man  to  man  and  from  hour  to  hour.  Hence  divers  appel- 
lations and  conceptions  for  the  same  thing.  But  many 
objects  of  daily  use — as  paper,  ink,  butter,  overcoat — have 
properties  of  such  constant  unwaveriDg  importance,  and 
have  cuch  stereotyped  names,  that  we  end  by  believing  that 
to  conceive  them  in  those  ways  is  to  conceive  them  in  the 
only  true  way.      Those  are  no  truer  ways  of  conceiving 

*  Readers  brought  up  on  Popular  Science  may  think  that  the  mo- 
lecular structure  of  things  is  their  real  essence  in  an  absolute  sense, 
and  that  water  is  H-O-H  more  deeply  and  truly  than  it  is  a  solvent 
of  sugar  or  a  slaker  of  thirst.  Not  a  whit  I  It  is  all  of  these  things 
with  equal  reality,  and  the  only  reason  why  for  the  chemist  it  is 
H-O-H  primarily,  and  only  secondarily  the  other  things,  is  that 
for  his  purpose  of  laboratory  analysis  and  synthesis,  and  inclusion  in 
the  science  vhich  treats  of  compositions  and  decompositions,  the 
H-O-H  aspect  of  it  is  the  more  important  one  to  bear  in  mind. 


35S  PSYCHOLOGY. 

them  than  any  others;  they  are  only  more  frequently  ser- 
viceable ways  to  us. 

Reasoning  is  always  for  a  subjective  interest.  To  re- 
vert now  to  our  symbolic  representation  of  the  reasoning 
process: 

M  isP 
S  isM 


S  isP 

M  is  discerned  and  picked  out  for  the  time  being  to  be 
the  essence  of  the  concrete  fact,  phenomenon,  or  reality,  S. 
But  M  in  this  world  of  ours  is  inevitably  conjoined  with 
P;  so  that  P  is  the  next  thing  that  we  may  expect  to  find 
conjoined  with  the  fact  S.  We  may  conclude  or  infer  P, 
through  the  intermediation  of  the  M  which  our  sagacity 
began  by  discerning,  when  S  came  before  it,  to  be  the  es- 
sence of  the  case. 

Now  note  that  if  P  have  any  value  or  importance  for  us, 
M  was  a  very  good  character  for  our  sagacity  to  pounce 
upon  and  abstract.  If,  on  the  contrary,  P  were  of  no  im- 
portance, some  other  character  than  M  would  have  been  a 
better  essence  for  us  to  conceive  of  S  by.  Psychologically, 
as  a  rule,  P  overshadows  the  process  from  the  start.  \Xc 
are  seeking  P,  or  something  like  P.  But  the  bare  totality 
of  S  does  not  yield  it  to  our  gaze;  and  casting  about  for 
some  point  in  8  to  take  hold  of  which  will  lead  us  to  P, 
we  hit,  if  we  are  sagacious,  upon  M,  because  M  happens  to 
be  just  the  character  which  is  knit  up  with  P.  Had  we 
wished  Q,  instead  of  P,  and  were  N  a  property  of  S  conjoined 
with  Q,  we  ought  to  have  ignored  M,  noticed  N,  and  con- 
3eived  of  S  as  a  sort  of  N  exclusively. 

Reasoning  is  always  to  attain  some  particular  conclusion, 
or  to  gratify  some  special  curiosity.  It  not  only  breaks 
up  the  datum  placed  before  it  and  conceives  it  abstractly 
it  must  conceive  it  rightly  too;  and  conceiving  it  rightly 
means  conceiving  it  by  that  one  particular  abstract  charac- 
ter which  leads  to  the  one  sort  of  conclusion  which  it  is 
the  reasoner's  temporary  interest  to  attain. 


REASONING.  359 

The  results  of  reasoning  may  be  hit  upon  by  accident. 
The  stereoscope  was  actually  a  result  of  reasoning;  it  is 
conceivable,  however,  that  a  man  playing  with  pictures  and 
mirrors  might  accidentally  have  hit  upon  it.  Cats  have 
been  known  to  open  doors  by  pulling  latches,  etc.  But  no 
cat,  if  the  latch  got  out  of  order,  could  open  the  door  again, 
unless  some  new  accident  of  random  fumbling  taught  her 
to  associate  some  new  total  movement  with  the  total  phe- 
nomenon of  the  closed  door.  A  reasoning  man,  however 
would  open  the  door  by  first  analyzing  the  hindrance.  He 
would  ascertain  what  particular  feature  of  the  door  was 
wrong.  The  lever,  e.g.,  does  not  raise  the  latch  sufficiently 
from  its  slot — case  of  insufficient  elevation:  raise  door 
bodily  on  hinges  !  Or  door  sticks  at  bottom  by  friction 
against  sill :  raise  it  bodily  up  !  Now  it  is  obvious  that  a 
child  or  an  idiot  might  without  this  reasoning  learn  the 
rule  for  opening  that  particular  door.  I  remember  a  clock 
which  the  maid-servant  had  discovered  would  not  go  unless 
it  were  supported  so  as  to  tilt  slightly  forwards.  She  had 
stumbled  on  this  method  after  many  weeks  of  groping. 
The  reason  of  the  stoppage  was  the  friction  of  the  pendu- 
lum-bob against  the  back  of  the  clock-case,  a  reason  which 
an  educated  man  would  have  analyzed  out  in  five  minutes. 
I  have  a  student's  lamp  of  which  the  flame  vibrates  most 
unpleasantly  unless  the  chimney  be  raised  about  a  sixteenth 
of  an  inch.  I  learned  the  remedy  after  much  torment  by 
accident,  and  now  always  keep  the  chimney  up  with  a  small 
wedge.  But  my  procedure  is  a  mere  association  of  two 
totals,  diseased  object  and  remedy.  One  learned  in  pneu- 
matics could  have  abstracted  the  cause  of  the  disease,  and 
thence  inferred  the  remedy  immediately.  By  many  meas- 
urements of  triangles  one  might  find  their  area  always 
equal  to  their  height  multiplied  by  half  their  base,  and  one 
might  formulate  an  empirical  law  to  that  effect.  But  a 
reasoner  saves  himself  all  this  trouble  by  seeing  that  it  is 
the  essence  (pro  Itac  vice)  of  a  triangle  to  be  the  half  of  a 
parallelogram  whose  area  is  the  height  into  the  entire  base. 


360  PSYCnOLOOT. 

To  see  this  he  must  invent  additional  lines;  and  the  geom- 
eter must  often  draw  such  to  get  at  the  essential  property 
he  may  require  in  a  figure.  The  essence  consists  in  some 
relation  of  the  figure  to  the  neiv  lines,  a  relation  not  obvious 
at  all  until  they  are  put  in.  The  geometer's  genius  lies  in 
the  imagining  of  the  new  lines,  and  his  sagacity  in  the  per- 
ceiving of  the  relation. 

Thus,  there  are  two  great  points  in  reasoning.  First, 
an  extracted  character  is  taken  as  equivalent  to  the  entire 
da/ Km  from  luhich  it  comes;  and, 

Second,  the  character  thus  taken  suggests  a  certain  conse- 
quence more  obviously  than  it  was  suggested  by  the  total 
datum  as  it  originally  came.  Take  these  points  again, 
successively. 

1)  Suppose  I  say,  when  offered  a  piece  of  cloth,  "  I  won't 
buy  that;  it  looks  as  if  it  would  fade,"  meaning  merely 
that  something  about  it  suggests  the  idea  of  fading  to  my 
mind, — my  judgment,  though  possibly  correct,  is  not  rea- 
soned, but  purely  empirical;  but  if  I  can  say  that  into  the 
color  there  enters  a  certain  dye  which  I  know  to  be  chemi- 
cally unstable,  and  that  therefore  the  color  will  fade,  my 
judgment  is  reasoned.  The  notion  of  the  dye,  which  is  one 
of  the  parts  of  the  cloth,  is  the  connecting  link  between 
the  latter  and  the  notion  of  fading.  So,  again,  an  unedu- 
cated man  will  expect  from  past  experience  to  see  a  piece 
of  ice  melt  if  placed  near  the  fire,  and  the  tip  of  his  finger 
look  coarse  if  he  view  it  through  a  convex  glass.  In 
neither  of  these  cases  could  the  result  be  anticipated  with- 
out full  previous  acquaintance  with  the  entire  phenomenon. 
It  is  not  a  result  of  reasoning. 

But  a  man  who  should  conceive  heat  as  a  mode  of 
motion,  and  liquefaction  as  identical  with  increased  motion 
of  molecules;  who  should  know  that  curved  surfaces  bend 
light-rays  in  special  ways,  and  that  the  apparent  size  of 
anything  is  connected  with  the  amount  of  the  '  bend '  of  its 
light-rays  as  they  enter  the  eye, — such  a  man  would  make 
the  right  inferences  for  all  these  objects,  even  though  he 


REASONING.  361 

had  never  in  his  life  had  any  concrete  experience  of  them: 
and  he  would  do  this  because  the  ideas  which  we  have 
above  supposed  him  to  possess  would  mediate  in  his  mind 
between  the  phenomena  he  starts  with  and  the  conclusions 
he  draws.  But  these  ideas  are  all  mere  extracted  portions 
or  circumstances.  The  motions  which  form  heat,  the  bend- 
ing of  the  light-waves,  are,  it  is  true,  excessively  recondite 
ingredients;  the  hidden  pendulum  I  spoke  of  above  is  less 
so;  and  the  sticking  of  a  door  on  its  sill  in  the  earlier  ex- 
ample would  hardly  be  so  at  all.  But  each  and  all  agree 
in  this,  that  they  bear  a  more  evident  relation  to  the  con- 
clusion than  did  the  facts  in  their  immediate  totality. 

2)  And  now  to  prove  the  second  point:  Why  are  the 
couplings,  consequences,  and  implications  of  extracts  more 
evident  and  obvious  than  those  of  entire  phenomena  ?  For 
two  reasons. 

First,  the  extracted  characters  are  more  general  than  the 
concretes,  and  the  connections  they  may  have  are,  there- 
fore, more  familiar  to  us,  having  been  more  often  met  in 
our  experience.  Think  of  heat  as  motion,  and  whatever  is 
true  of  motion  will  be  true  of  heat;  but  we  have  had  a 
hundred  experiences  of  motion  for  every  one  of  heat. 
Think  of  the  rays  passing  through  this  lens  as  bending 
towards  the  perpendicular,  and  you  substitute  for  the  com- 
paratively unfamiliar  lens  the  very  familiar  notion  of  a 
particular  change  in  direction  of  a  line,  of  which  notion 
every  day  brings  us  countless  examples. 

The  other  reason  why  the  relations  of  the  extracted 
characters  are  so  evident  is  that  their  properties  are  so 
few,  compared  with  the  properties  of  the  whole,  from 
which  we  derived  them.  In  every  concrete  fact  the  char- 
acters and  their  consequences  are  so  inexhaustibly  numer- 
ous that  we  may  lose  our  way  among  them  before  noticing 
the  particular  consequence  it  behooves  us  to  draw.  But, 
if  we  are  lucky  enough  to  single  out  the  proper  character, 
we  take  in,  as  it  were,  by  a  single  glance  all  its  possible 


362  PSYCHOLOGY. 

consequences.  Thus  the  character  of  scraping  the  sill  has 
very  few  suggestions,  prominent  among  which  is  the  sug- 
gestion that  the  scraping  will  cease  if  we  raise  the  door; 
whilst  the  entire  refractory  door  suggests  an  enormous 
number  of  notions  to  the  mind.  Such  examples  may  seem 
trivial,  but  they  contain  the  essence  of  the  most  refined 
and  transcendental  theorizing.  The  reason  why  physics 
grows  more  deductive  the  more  the  fundamental  proper- 
ties it  assumes  are  of  a  mathematical  sort,  such  as  molecu- 
lar mass  or  wave-length,  is  that  the  immediate  consequences 
of  these  notions  are  so  few  that  we  can  survey  them  all  at 
once,  and  promptly  pick  out  those  which  concern  us. 

Sagacity. — To  reason,  then,  we  must  be  able  to  extract 
characters, — not  any  characters,  but  the  right  characters 
for  our  conclusion.  If  we  extract  the  wrong  character,  it 
will  not  lead  to  that  conclusion.  Here,  then,  is  the  diffi- 
culty: How  are  characters  extracted,  and  why  dues  it  re- 
quire the  advent  of  a  genius  in  many  cases  before  the  filling 
character  is  brought  to  light?  Why  cannot  anybody  rea- 
son as  well  as  anybody  else  ?  Why  does  it  need  a  Newton 
to  notice  the  law  of  the  squares,  a  Darwin  to  notice  the 
survival  of  the  fittest  ?  To  answer  these  questions  we  must 
begin  a  new  research,  and  see  how  our  insight  into  facts 
naturally  grows. 

All  our  knowledge  at  first  is  vague.  When  we  say  that 
a  thing  is  vague,  we  mean  that  it  has  no  subdivisions  ab 
■intra,  nor  precise  limitations  ab  extra;  but  still  all  the 
forms  of  thought  may  apply  to  it.  It  may  have  unity, 
reality,  externality,  extent,  and  what  not — thinghood,  in 
a  word,  but  thinghood  only  as  a  whole.  In  this  vague 
way,  probably,  does  the  room  appear  to  the  babe  who  first 
begins  to  be  conscious  of  it  as  something  other  than  his 
moving  nurse.  It  has  no  subdivisions  in  his  mind,  un- 
less, perhaps,  the  window  is  able  to  attract  his  separate 
notice.  In  this  vague  way,  certainly,  does  every  entirely 
new  experience  appear  to  the  adult.  A  library,  a  museum, 
a  machine-shop,  are  mere  confused  wholes  to  the  unin- 


REASONING.  363 

structed,  but  the  machinist,  the  antiquary,  and  the  book- 
worm perhaps  hardly  notice  the  whole  at  all,  so  eager  are 
they  to  pounce  upon  the  details.  Familiarity  has  in  them 
bred  discrimination.  Such  vague  terms  as  '  grass,'  '  mould,' 
and  '  meat'  do  not  exist  for  the  botanist  or  the  anatomist. 
They  know  too  much  about  grasses,  moulds,  and  muscles. 
A  certain  person  said  to  Charles  Kingsley,  who  was  show- 
ing him  the  dissection  of  a  caterpillar,  with  its  exquisite 
viscera,  "  Why,  I  thought  it  was  nothing  but  skin  and 
squash! "  A  layman  present  at  a  shipwreck,  a  battle,  or  a 
fire  is  helpless.  Discrimination  has  been  so  little  awak- 
ened in  him  by  experience  that  his  consciousness  leaves  no 
single  point  of  the  complex  situation  accented  and  stand- 
ing out  for  him  to  begin  to  act  upon.  But  the  sailor,  the 
fireman,  and  the  general  know  directly  at  what  corner  to 
take  up  the  business.  They  '  see  into  the  situation  '—that 
is,  they  analyze  it — with  their  first  glance.  It  is  full  of 
delicately  differenced  ingredients  which  their  education 
has  little  by  little  brought  to  their  consciousness,  but  of 
which  the  novice  gains  no  clear  idea. 

How  this  power  of  analysis  was  brought  about  we  saw  in 
our  chapters  on  Discrimination  and  Attention.  We  dis- 
sociate the  elements  of  originally  vague  totals  by  attending 
to  them  or  noticing  them  alternately,  of  course.  But  what 
determines  which  element  we  shall  attend  to  first  ?  There 
are  two  immediate  and  obvious  answers:  first,  our  practical 
or  instinctive  interests:  and  second,  our  aesthetic  interests. 
The  dog  singles  out  of  any  situation  its  smells,  and  the 
horse  its  sounds,  because  they  may  reveal  facts  of  practical 
moment,  and  are  instinctively  exciting  to  these  several 
creatures.  The  infant  notices  the  candle-flame  or  the  win- 
dow, and  ignores  the  rest  of  the  room,  because  those  objects 
give  him  a  vivid  pleasure.  So,  the  country  boy  dissociates 
the  blackberry,  the  chestnut,  and  the  wintergreen,  from 
the  vague  mass  of  other  shrubs  and  trees,  for  their  practi- 
cal uses,  and  the  savage  is  delighted  with  the  beads,  the 
bits  of  looking-glass,  brought  by  an  exploring  vessel,  and 


3G4  PSYCHOLOGY. 

<rives  no  heed  to  the  features  of  the  vessel  itself,  which  is 
too  much  beyond  his  sphere.  These  aesthetic  and  practical 
interests,  then,  are  the  weightiest  factors  in  making  partic- 
ular ingredients  stand  out  in  high  relief.  What  they  lay 
their  accent  on,  that  we  notice;  but  what  they  are  in  them- 
selves we  cannot  say.  We  must  content  ourselves  here 
with  simply  accepting  them  as  irreducible  ultimate  factors 
in  determining  the  way  our  knowledge  grows. 

Now,  a  creature  which  has  few  instinctive  impulses,  or 
interests  practical  or  aesthetic,  will  dissociate  few  charac- 
ters, and  will,  at  best,  have  limited  reasoning  powers; 
whilst  one  whose  interests  are  very  varied  will  reason 
much  better.  Man,  by  his  immensely  varied  instincts, 
practical  wants,  and  aesthetic  feelings,  to  which  every  sense 
contributes,  would,  by  dint  of  these  alone,  be  sure  to  dis- 
sociate vastly  more  characters  than  any  other  animal;  and 
accordingly  we  find  that  the  lowest  savages  reason  incom- 
parably better  than  the  highest  brutes.  The  diverse  in- 
terests lead,  too,  to  a  diversification  of  experiences,  whose 
accumulation  becomes  a  condition  for  the  play  of  that  law 
of  dissociation  by  varying  concomitants  of  which  I  treated 
on  p.  251. 

The  Help  given  by  Association  by  Similarity. — It  is 
probable,  also,  that  man's  superior  association  by  similar- 
ity has  much  to  do  with  those  discriminations  of  character 
on  which  his  higher  flights  of  reasoning  are  based.  As 
this  latter  is  an  important  matter,  and  as  little  or  nothing 
was  said  of  it  in  the  chapter  on  Discrimination,  it  behooves 
me  to  dwell  a  little  upon  it  here. 

What  does  the  reader  do  when  he  wishes  to  see  in  what 
the  precise  likeness  or  difference  of  two  objects  lies  ?  He 
transfers  his  attention  as  rapidly  as  possible,  backwards 
and  forwards,  from  one  to  the  other.  The  rapid  alteration 
in  consciousness  shakes  out,  as  it  were,  the  points  of  dif- 
ference or  agreement,  which  would  have  slumbered  forever 
unnoticed  if  the  consciousness  of  the  objects  compared  had 
occurred  at  widely  distant  periods  of  time.     What  does 


REASONING.  365 

the  scientific  man  do  who  searches  for  the  reason  or  law 
embedded  in  a  phenomenon  ?  He  deliberately  accumu- 
lates all  the  instances  he  can  find  which  have  any  analogy 
to  that  phenomenon;  and,  by  simultaneously  filling  his 
mind  with  them  all,  he  frequently  succeeds  in  detaching 
from  the  collection  the  peculiarity  which  he  was  unable 
to  formulate  in  one  alone;  even  though  that  one  had  been 
preceded  in  his  former  experience  by  all  of  those  with 
which  he  now  at  once  confronts  it.  These  examples  show 
that  the  mere  general  fact  of  having  occurred  at  some  time 
in  one's  experience,  with  varying  concomitants,  is  not  by 
itself  a  sufficient  reason  for  a  cnaracter  to  be  dissociated 
now.  We  need  something  more;  we  need  that  the  varying 
concomitants  should  in  all  their  variety  be  brought  into 
consciousness  at  once.  Not  till  then  will  the  character  in 
question  escape  from  its  adhesion  to  each  and  all  of  them 
and  stand  alone.  This  will  immediately  be  recognized  by 
those  who  have  read  Mill's  Logic  as  the  ground  of  Utility 
in  his  famous  '  four  methods  of  experimental  inquiry/  the 
methods  of  agreement,  of  difference,  of  residues,  and  of 
concomitant  variations.  Each  of  these  gives  a  list  of 
analogous  instances  out  of  the  midst  of  which  a  sought- 
for  character  may  roll  and  strike  the  mind. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  any  mind  in  which  association  by 
similarity  is  highly  developed  is  a  mind  which  will  spon- 
taneously form  lists  of  instances  like  this.  Take  a  present 
fact  A,  with  a  character  m  in  it.  The  mind  may  fail  at  first 
to  notice  this  character  m  at  all.  But  if  A  calls  up  C,  D, 
E,  and  F, — these  being  phenomena  which  resemble  A  in 
possessing  m,  but  which  may  not  have  entered  for  months 
into  the  experience  of  the  animal  who  now  experiences  A, 
why,  plainly,  such  association  performs  the  part  of  the 
reader's  deliberately  rapid  comparison  referred  to  above, 
and  of  the  systematic  consideration  of  like  cases  by  the 
scientific  investigator,  and  may  lead  to  the  noticing  of  m 
in  an  abstract  way.  Certainly  this  is  obvious;  and  no 
conclusion  is  left  to  us  but  to  assert  that,  after  the  few 


366 


PSYCHOLOGY. 


most  powerful  practical  and  aesthetic  interests,  our  chief 
help  towards  noticing  those  special  characters  of  phenom- 
ena which,  when  once  possessed  and  named,  are  used  as 
reasons,  class  names,  essences,  or  middle  terms,  is  this 
association  by  similarity.  Without  it,  indeed,  the  delib- 
erate procedure  of  the  scientific  man  would  be  impossible: 
he  could  never  collect  his  analogous  instances.  But  it 
operates  of  itself  in  highly-gifted  minds  without  any  delib- 
eration, spontaneously  collecting  analogous  instances,  unit- 
ing in  a  moment  what  in  nature  the  whole  breadth  of  space 
and  time  keeps  separate,  and  so  permitting  a  perception  of 
identical  points  in  the  midst  of  different  circumstances, 
which  minds  governed  wholly  by  the  law  of  contiguity 
could  never  begin  to  attain. 


Fig  66. 


Figure  66  shows  this.  If  in,  in  the  present  representa- 
tion A,  calls  up  B,  C,  D,  and  E,  which  are  similar  to  A  in 
possessing  it,  and  calls  them  up  in  rapid  succession,  then 
in,  being  associated  almost  simultaneously  with  such  vary- 
ing concomitants,  will  '  roll  out '  and  attract  our  separate 
notice. 


REASONING.  367 

If  so  much  is  clear  to  the  reader,  he  will  be  willing  to 
admit  that  the  mind  in  which  this  mode  of  association  most 
prevails  will,  from  its  better  opportunity  of  extricating 
characters,  be  the  one  most  prone  to  reasoned  thinking; 
whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  a  mind  in  which  we  do  not 
detect  reasoned  thinking  will  probably  be  one  in  which 
association  by  contiguity  holds  almost  exclusive  sway. 

Geniuses  are,  by  common  consent,  considered  to  differ 
from  ordinary  minds  by  an  unusual  development  of  associ- 
ation by  similarity.  One  of  Professor  Bain's  best  strokes 
of  work  is  the  exhibition  of  this  truth.  It  applies  to 
geniuses  in  the  line  of  reasoning  as  well  as  in  other  lines. 

The  Reasoning  Powers  of  Brutes. — As  the  genius  is  to 
the  vulgarian,  so  the  vulgar  human  mind  is  to  the  intelli 
gence  of  a  brute.  Compared  with  men,  it  is  probable  that 
brutes  neither  attend  to  abstract  characters,  nor  have  asso- 
ciations by  similarity.  Their  thoughts  probably  pass  from 
one  concrete  object  to  its  habitual  concrete  successor  far 
more  uniformly  than  is  the  case  with  us.  In  other  words, 
their  associations  of  ideas  are  almost  exclusively  by  con- 
tiguity. So  far,  however,  as  any  brute  might  think  by 
abstract  characters  instead  of  by  the  association  of  con- 
cretes, he  would  have  to  be  admitted  to  be  a  reasoner  in 
the  true  human  sense.  How  far  this  may  take  place  is 
quite  uncertain.  Certain  it  is  that  the  more  intelligent 
brutes  obey  abstract  characters,  whether  they  mentally  single 
them  out  as  such  or  not.  They  act  upon  things  according 
to  their  class.  This  involves  some  sort  of  emphasizing,  if 
not  abstracting,  of  the  class-essence  by  the  animal's  mind. 
A  concrete  individual  with  none  of  his  characters  empha- 
sized is  one  thing;  a  sharply  conceived  attribute  marked 
off  from  everything  else  by  a  name  is  another.  But  be- 
tween no  analysis  of  a  concrete,  and  complete  analysis;  no 
abstraction  of  an  embedded  character,  and  complete  abstrac- 
tion, every  possible  intermediary  grade  must  lie.  And 
some  of  these  grades  ought  to  have  names,  for  they  are 
certainly  represented  in  tbe  mind.     Dr.  Romanes  has  pro- 


368  PSYCHOLOGY. 

posed  the  name  recept,  and  Prof.  Lloyd  Morgan  the  name 
construct,  for  the  idea  of  a  vaguely  abstracted  and  gener- 
alized object-class.  A  definite  abstraction  is  called  an 
isolate  by  the  latter  author.  Neither  construct  nor  recept 
seems  to  me  a  felicitous  word ;  but  poor  as  both  are,  they 
form  a  distinct  addition  to  psychology,  so  I  give  them 
here.  Would  such  a  word  as  influent  sound  better  than 
tecept  in  the  following  passage  from  Romanes? 

"  Water-fowl  adopt  a  somewhat  different  mode  of  alight- 
ing upon  land,  or  even  upon  ice,  from  that  which  they 
adopt  when  alighting  upon  water;  and  those  kinds  which 
dive  from  a  height  (such  as  terns  and  gannets)  never  do 
so  upon  land  or  upon  ice.  These  facts  prove  that  the 
animals  have  one  recept  answering  to  a  solid  surface, 
and  another  answering  to  a  fluid.  Similarly  a  man  will 
not  dive  from  a  height  over  hard  ground  or  over  ice, 
nor  will  he  jump  into  water  in  the  same  way  as  he  jumps 
upon  dry  land.  In  other  words,  like  the  water-fowl  he  has 
two  distinct  recepts,  one  of  which  answers  to  solid  ground, 
and  the  other  to  an  unresisting  fluid.  But  unlike  the 
water-fowl  he  is  able  to  bestow  upon  each  of  these  recepts 
a  name,  and  thus  to  raise  them  both  to  the  level  of  con- 
cepts. So  far  as  the  practical  purposes  of  locomotion  are 
concerned,  it  is  of  course  immaterial  whether  or  not  he 
thus  raises  his  recepts  into  concepts;  but  .  .  .  for  many 
other  purposes  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  that  he  is 
il.le  to  do  this."* 

A  certain  well-bred  retriever  of  whom  I  know  never  bit 
his  birds.  But  one  day  having  to  bring  two  birds  at  once, 
which,  though  unable  to  fly,  were  'alive  and  kicking,'  he 
deliberately  gave  one  a  bite  which  killed  it,  took  the  other 
one  still  alive  to  his  master,  and  then  returned  for  the  first. 
It  is  impossible  not  to  believe  that  some  such  abstract 
thoughts  as  '  alive — get  away — must  kill/  .  .  .  etc.,  passed  in 
rapid  succession  through  this  dog's  mind,  whatever  the 


•Mental  Evolution  in  Man,  p.  74. 


SEASONING.  369 

sensible  imagery  may  have  been  with  which  they  were 
blended.  Such  practical  obedience  to  the  special  aspects 
of  things  which  may  be  important  involves  the  essence  of 
reasoning.  But  the  characters  whose  presence  impress 
brutes  are  very  few,  being  only  those  which  are  directly 
connected  with  their  most  instinctive  interests.  They 
never  extract  characters  for  the  mere  fun  of  the  thing,  as 
men  do.  One  is  tempted  to  explain  this  as  the  result  in 
them  of  an  almost  entire  absence  of  such  association  by 
similarity  as  characterizes  the  human  mind.  A  thing 
may  remind  a  brute  of  its  full  similars,  but  not  of  things  to 
which  it  is  but  slightly  similar;  and  all  that  dissociation 
by  varying  concomitants,  which  in  man  is  based  so  largely 
on  association  by  similarity,  hardly  seems  to  take  place  at 
all  in  the  infra-human  mind.  One  total  object  suggests 
another  total  object,  and  the  lower  mammals  find  them- 
selves acting  with  propriety,  they  know  not  why.  The 
great,  the  fundamental,  defect  of  their  minds  seems  to  be 
the  inability  of  their  groups  of  ideas  to  break  across  in 
unaccustomed  places.  They  are  enslaved  to  routine,  to 
cut-and-dried  thinking;  and  if  the  most  prosaic  of  human 
beings  could  be  transported  into  his  dog's  soul,  he  would 
be  appalled  at  the  utter  absence  of  fancy  which  there 
reigns.  Thoughts  would  not  be  found  to  call  up  their  simi- 
lars, but  only  their  habitual  successors.  Sunsets  would 
not  suggest  heroes'  deaths,  but  supper-time.  This  is  why 
man  is  the  only  metaphysical  animal.  To  wonder  why 
the  universe  should  be  as  it  is  presupposes  the  notion  of 
its  being  different,  and  a  brute,  who  never  reduces  the 
actual  to  fluidity  by  breaking  up  its  literal  sequences  in 
his  imagination,  can  never  form  such  a  notion.  He  takes 
the  world  simply  for  granted,  and  never  wonders  at  it  at 
all. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

CONSCIOUSNESS  AND  MOVEMENT. 

All  consciousness  is  motor.  The  reader  will  not  have 
forgotten,  in  the  jungle  of  purely  inward  processes  and 
products  through  which  the  last  chapters  have  borne  him., 
that  the  final  result  of  them  all  must  be  some  form  of 
bodily  activity  due  to  the  escape  of  the  central  excitement 
through  outgoing  nerves.  The  whole  neural  organism,  it 
will  be  remembered,  is,  physiologically  considered,  but  a 
machine  for  converting  stimuli  into  reactions;  and  the 
intellectual  part  of  our  life  is  knit  up  with  but  the  middle 
or  '  central  *  part  of  the  machine's  operations.  We  new 
go  on  to  consider  the  final  or  emergent  operations,  the 
bodily  activities,  and  the  forms  of  consciousness  consequent 
thereupon. 

Every  impression  which  impinges  on  the  incoming 
nerves  produces  some  discharge  down  the  outgoing  ones, 
whether  Ave  be  aware  of  it  or  not.  Using  sweeping  terms 
and  ignoring  exceptions,  we  might  say  that  every  possible 
feeling  produces  a  movement,  and  that  the  movement  is  a 
movement  of  the  entire  organism,  and  of  each  and  all  its 
parts.  What  happens  patently  when  an  explosion  or  a 
flash  of  lightning  startles  us,  or  when  we  are  tickled,  Imp- 
pens  latently  with  every  sensation  which  we  receive.  The 
only  reason  why  we  do  not  feel  the  startle  or  tickle  in  the 
case  of  insignificant  sensations  is  partly  its  very  small 
amount,  partly  our  obtuseness.  Professor  Bain  many  years 
ago  gave  the  name  of  the  Law  of  Diffusion  to  this  phe- 
nomenon of  general  discharge,  and  expressed  it  thus; 
"  According  as  an  impression  is  accompanied  with  Feeling, 
the  aroused  currents   diffuse  themselves  over   the   brain. 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AND  MOVEMENT.  371 

leading  to  a  general  agitation  of  the  moving  organs,  as 
well  as  affecting  the  viscera." 

There  are  probably  no  exceptions  to  the  diffusion  of 
every  impression  through  the  nerve-centres.  The  effect  of 
a  new  wave  through  the  centres  may,  however,  often  be  to 
interfere  with  processes  already  going  on  there;  and  the 
outward  consequence  of  such  interference  may  be  the 
checking  of  bodily  activities  in  process  of  occurrence. 
When  this  happens  it  probably  is  like  the  siphoning  of 
certain  channels  by  currents  flowing  through  others;  as 
when,  in  walking,  we  suddenly  stand  still  because  a 
sound,  sight,  smell,  or  thought  catches  our  attention. 
But  there  are  cases  of  arrest  of  peripheral  activity  which 
depend,  not  on  inhibition  of  centres,  but  on  stimulation  of 
centres  which  discharge  outgoing  currents  of  an  inhibi- 
tory sort.  Whenever  we  are  startled,  for  example,  our 
heart  momentarily  stops  or  slows  its  beating,  and  then 
palpitates  with  accelerated  speed.  The  brief  arrest  is  due 
to  an  outgoing  current  down  the  pneumogastric  nerve. 
This  nerve,  when  stimulated,  stops  or  slows  the  heart- 
beats, and  this  particular  effect  of  startling  fails  to  occur 
if  the  nerve  be  cut. 

In  general,  however,  the  stimulating  effects  of  a  sense- 
impression  preponderate  over  the  inhibiting  effects,  so  that 
we  may  roughly  say,  as  we  began  by  saying,  that  the  wave 
of  discharge  produces  an  activity  in  all  parts  of  the  body. 
The  task  of  tracing  out  all  the  effects  of  any  one  incoming 
sensation  has  not  yet  been  performed  by  physiologists. 
Recent  years  have,  however,  begun  to  enlarge  our  informa- 
tion; and  we  have  now  experimental  proof  that  the  heart- 
beats, the  arterial  pressure,  the  respiration,  the  sweat- 
glands,  the  pupil,  the  bladder,  bowels,  and  uterus,  as  well 
as  the  voluntary  muscles,  may  have  their  tone  and  degree 
of  contraction  altered  even  by  the  most  insignificant  sen- 
sorial stimuli.  In  short,  a  process  set  up  anywhere  in  the 
centres  reverberates  everywhere,  and  in  some  zvay  or  other 
affects   the   organism    throughout,   making   its  activities 


372  PSYCHOLOGY. 

either  greater  or  less.  It  is  as  if  the  nerve-central  mass 
were  like  a  good  conductor  charged  with  electricity,  of 
which  the  tension  cannot  be  changed  at  all  without  chang- 
ing it  everywhere  at  once. 

Herr  Schneider  has  tried  to  show,  by  an  ingenious  zoo- 
logical review,  that  all  the  special  movements  which  highly 
evolved  animals  make  are  differentiated  from  the  two 
originally  simple  movements  of  contraction  and  expan- 
sion in  which  the  entire  body  of  simple  organisms  takes 
part.  The  tendency  to  contract  is  the  source  of  all  the 
self-protective  impulses  and  reactions  which  are  later  de- 
veloped, including  that  of  flight.  The  tendency  to  expand 
splits  up,  on  the  contrary,  into  the  impulses  and  instincts 
of  an  aggressive  kind,  feeding,  fighting,  sexual  intercourse, 
etc.  I  cite  this  as  a  sort  of  evolutionary  reason  to  add  to 
the  mechanical  a  jiriari  reason  why  there  ought  to  be  the 
diffusive  wave  which  a  posteriori  instances  show  to  exist. 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  a  detailed  study  of  the  more 
important  classes  of  movement  consequent  upon  cerebro- 
mental  change.     They  may  be  enumerated  as — 

1)  Expressions  of  Emotion; 

2)  Instinctive  or  Impulsive  Performances;  and 

3)  Voluntary  Deeds; 

and  each  shall  have  a  chapter  to  itself. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

EMOTION. 

Emotions  compared  with  Instincts. — An  emotion  is  a 
tendency  to  feel,  and  an  instinct  is  a  tendency  to  act,  char- 
acteristically, when  in  presence  of  a  certain  object  in  the 
environment.  But  the  emotions  also  have  their  bodily 
'  expression/  which  may  involve  strong  muscular  activity 
(as  in  fear  or  anger,  for  example) ;  and  it  becomes  a  little 
hard  in  many  cases  to  separate  the  description  of  the 
'  emotional '  condition  from  that  of  the  '  instinctive '  reac- 
tion which  one  and  the  same  object  may  provoke.  Shall 
fear  be  described  in  the  chapter  on  Instincts  or  in  that  on 
Emotions  ?  Where  shall  one  describe  curiosity,  emulation, 
aud  the  like  ?  The  answer  is  quite  arbitrary  from  the 
scientific  point  of  view,  and  practical  convenience  may  de- 
cide. As  inner  mental  conditions,  emotions  are  quite  in- 
describable. Description,  moreover,  would  be  superfluous, 
for  the  reader  knows  already  how  they  feel.  Their  rela- 
tions to  the  objects  which  prompt  them  and  to  the  reac- 
tions which  they  provoke  are  all  that  one  can  put  down  in 
a  book. 

Ejgsry_obj.ect  that  excites  an  instinct  excites  an  emotion  as 
well.  The  only  distinction  one  may  draw  is  that  the  reaction 
called  emotional  terminates  in  the  subject's  own  body, 
whilst  the  reaction  called  instinctive  is  apt  to  go  farther 
and  enter  into  practical  relations  with  the  exciting  object. 
In  both  instinct  and  emotion  the  mere  memory  or  imagina- 
tion of  the  object  may  suffice  to  liberate  the  excitement. 
One  may  even  get  angrier  in  thinking  over  one's  insult 
tnan  one  was  in  receiving  it;  and  melt  more  over  a  mother 
vvbo  is  dead  than  one  ever  did  when  she  was  living.     Jn 


374  PSYCHOLOGY. 

the  rest  of  the  chapter  I  shall  use  the  word  object  of  emo- 
tion indifferently  to  mean  one  which  is  physically  present 
or  one  which  is  merely  thought  of. 

The  varieties  of  emotion  are  innumerable.  Anger,  fear, 
love,  hate,  joy,  grief,  shame,  pride,  and  their  varieties,  may 
be  called  the  coarser  emotions,  being  coupled  as  they  are 
with  relatively  strong  bodily  reverberations.  The  subtler 
emotions  are  the  moral,  intellectual,  and  aesthetic  feelings, 
and  their  bodily  reaction  is  usually  much  less  strong.  The 
mere  description  of  the  objects,  circumstances,  and  varie- 
ties of  the  different  species  of  emotion  may  go  to  any 
length.  Their  internal  shadings  merge  endlessly  into  each 
other,  and  have  been  partly  commemorated  in  language, 
as,  for  example,  by  such  synonyms  as  hatred,  antipathy, 
animosity,  resentment,  dislike,  aversion,  malice,  spite,  re- 
venge, abhorrence,  etc.,  etc.  Dictionaries  of  synonyms 
have  discriminated  them,  as  well  as  text-books  of  psychol- 
ogy— in  fact,  many  German  psychological  text-books  are 
nothing  but  dictionaries  of  synonyms  when  it  comes  to  the 
chapter  on  Emotion.  But  there  are  limits  to  the  profitable 
elaboration  of  the  obvious,  and  the  result  of  all  this  flux  is 
that  the  merely  descriptive  literature  of  the  subject,  from 
Descartes  downwards,  is  one  of  the  most  tedious  parts  of 
psychology.  And  not  only  is  it  tedious,  but  you  feel  that 
its  subdivisions  are  to  a  great  extent  either  fictitious  or 
unimportant,  and  that  its  pretences  to  accuracy  are  a 
sham.  But  unfortunately  there  is  little  psychological 
writing  about  the  emotions  which  is  not  merely  descriptive. 
As  emotions  are  described  in  novels,  they  interest  us,  for 
we  are  made  to  share  them.  We  have  grown  acquainted 
with  the  concrete  objects  and  emergencies  which  call  them 
forth,  and  any  knowing  touch  of  introspection  which  may 
grace  the  page  meets  with  a  quick  and  feeling  response. 
Confessedly  literary  works  of  aphoristic  philosophy  also 
flash  lights  into  our  emotional  life,  and  give  us  a  fitful 
delight.  But  as  far  as  the  'scientific  psychology'  of  the 
emotions  goes,  I  may  have  been  surfeited  by  too  much 


EMOTION.  375 

reading  of  classic  works  on  the  subject,  but  I  should  as 
lief  read  verbal  descriptions  of  the  shapes  of  the  rocks  on 
a  New  Hampshire  farm  as  toil  through  them  again.  They 
give  one  nowhere  a  central  point  of  view,  or  a  deductive 
or  generative  principle.  They  distinguish  and  refine  and 
specify  in  infinitum  without  ever  getting  on  to  another 
logical  level.  Whereas  the  beauty  of  all  truly  scientific 
work  is  to  get  to  ever  deeper  levels.  Is  there  no  way  out 
from  this  level  of  individual  description  in  the  case  of  the 
emotions  ?  I  believe  there  is  a  way  out,  if  one  will  only 
take  it. 

The  Cause  of  their  Varieties. — The  trouble  with  the 
emotions  in  psychology  is  that  they  are  regarded  too  much 
as  absolutely  individual  things.  So  long  as  they  are  set 
down  as  so  many  eternal  and  sacred  psychic  entities,  like 
the  old  immutable  species  in  natural  history,  so  long  all 
that  can  be  done  with  them  is  reverently  to  catalogue  their 
separate  characters,  points,  and  effects.  But  if  we  regard 
them  as  products  of  more  general  causes  (as  '  species '  are 
now  regarded  as  products  of  heredity  and  variation),  the 
mere  distinguishing  and  cataloguing  becomes  of  subsidiary 
importance.  Having  the  goose  which  lays  the  golden 
eggs,  the  description  of  each  egg  already  laid  is  a  minor 
matter.  I  will  devote  the  next  few  pages  to  setting  forth 
one  very  general  cause  of  our  emotional  feeling,  limiting 
myself  in  the  first  instance  to  what  may  be  called  the 
coarser  emotions. 

The  feeling,  in  the  coarser  emotions,  results  from  the 
bodily  expression.  Our  natural  way  of  thinking  about 
these  coarser  emotions  is  that  the  mental  perception  of 
some  fact  excites  the  mental  affection  called  the  emotion, 
and  that  this  latter  state  of  mind  gives  rise  to  the  bodily 
expression.  My  theory,  on  the  contrary,  is  that  the  bodily 
changes  follow  directly  the  perception  of  the  exciting  fact, 
and  that  our  feeling  of  the  same  changes  as  they  occur  is 
the  emotion.  Common-sense  says,  we  lose  our  fortune,  are 
sorry  and  weep,  we  meet  a  bear,  are  frightened  and  run; 


376  PSYCHOLOGY. 

we  are  insulted  by  a  rival,  are  angry  and  strike.  The 
hypothesis  here  to  be  defended  says  that  this  order  of 
sequence  is  incorrect,  that  the  one  mental  state  is  not 
immediately  induced  by  the  other,  that  the  bodily  mani- 
festations must  first  be  interposed  between,  and  that  the 
more  rational  statement  is  that  we  feel  sorry  because  we 
cry,  angry  because  we  strike,  afraid  because  we  tremble, 
and  not  that  we  cry,  strike,  or  tremble  because  we  are 
sorry,  angry,  or  fearful,  as  the  case  may  be.  Without  the 
bodily  states  following  on  the  perception,  the  latter  would 
be  purely  cognitive  in  form,  pale,  colorless,  destitute  of 
emotional  warmth.  We  might  then  see  the  bear  and 
judge  it  best  to  run,  receive  the  insult  and  deem  it  right 
to  strike,  but  we  should  not  actually  feel  afraid  or  angry. 

Stated  in  this  crude  way,  the  hypothesis  is  pretty  sure 
to  meet  with  immediate  disbelief.  And  yet  neither  many 
nor  far-fetched  considerations  are  required  to  mitigate  its 
paradoxical  character,  and  possibly  to  produce  conviction 
of  its  truth. 

To  begin  with,  particular  perceptions  certainly  do  pro- 
duce wide-spread  bodily  effects  by  a  sort  of  immediate 
physical  influence,  antecedent  to  the  arousal  of  an  emotion 
or  emotional  idea.  In  listening  to  poetry,  drama,  or  heroic 
narrative  we  are  often  surprised  at  the  cutaneous  shivei 
which  like  a  sudden  wave  flows  over  us,  and  at  the  heart 
swelling  and  the  lachrymal  effusion  that  unexpectedly 
catch  us  at  intervals.  In  hearing  music  the  same  is  even 
more  strikingly  true.  If  we  abruptly  see  a  dark  moving 
form  in  the  woods,  our  heart  stops  beating,  and  we  catch 
our  breath  instantly  and  before  any  articulate  idea  of  dan- 
ger can  arise.  If  our  friend  goes  near  to  the  edge  of  a  preci- 
pice, we  get  the  well-known  feeling  of  '  all-overishness/  and 
we  shrink  back,  although  we  positively  know  him  to  be  safe, 
and  have  no  distinct  imagination  of  his  fall.  The  writer 
well  remembers  his  astonishment,  when  a  boy  of  seven  or 
eight,  at  fainting  when  he  saw  a  horse  bled.  The  blood 
was  in  a  bucket,  with  a  stick  in  it,  and,  if  memory  does  not 


EMOTION.  37? 

deceive  him,  he  stirred  it  round  and  saw  it  drip  from  the 
stick  with  no  feeling  save  that  of  childish  curiosity.  Sud- 
denly the  world  grew  black  before  his  eyes,  his  ears  began 
to  buzz,  and  he  knew  no  more.  He  had  never  heard  of  the 
sight  of  blood  producing  faintness  or  sickness,  and  he  had 
so  little  repugnance  to  it,  and  so  little  apprehension  of  any 
other  sort  of  danger  from  it,  that  even  at  that  tender  age, 
as  he  well  remembers,  he  could  not  help  wondering  how 
the  mere  physical  presence  of  a  pailful  of  crimson  fluid 
could  occasion  in  him  such  formidable  bodily  effects. 

The  best  proof  that  the  immediate  cause  of  emotion  is 
a  physical  effect  on  the  nerves  is  furnished  by  those  patho- 
logical cases  in  which  the  emotion  is  objectless.  One  of  the 
chief  merits,  in  fact,  of  the  view  which  I  pro]30se  seems 
to  be  that  we  can  so  easily  formulate  by  its  means  patho- 
logical cases  and  normal  cases  under  a  common  scheme. 
In  every  asylum  we  find  examples  of  absolutely  unmotived 
fear,  anger,  melancholy,  or  conceit;  and  others  of  an 
equally  unmotived  apathy  which  persists  in  spite  of  the 
best  of  outward  reasons  why  it  should  give  way.  In  the 
former  cases  we  must  suppose  the  nervous  machinery  to 
be  so  '  labile '  in  some  one  emotional  direction  that  almost 
every  stimulus  (however  inappropriate)  causes  it  to  upset 
in  that  way,  and  to  engender  the  particular  complex  of 
feelings  of  which  the  psychic  body  of  the  emotion  consists. 
Thus,  to  take  one  special  instance,  if  inability  to  draw  deep 
breath,  fluttering  of  the  heart,  and  that  peculiar  epigastric 
change  felt  as  'precordial  anxiety,'  with  an  irresistible 
tendency  to  take  a  somewhat  crouching  attitude  and  to 
sit  still,  and  with  perhaps  other  visceral  processes  not  now 
known,  all  spontaneously  occur  together  in  a  certain  per- 
son, his  feeling  of  their  combination  is  the  emotion  of 
dread,  and  he  is  the  victim  of  what  is  known  as  morbid 
fear.  A  friend  who  has  had  occasional  attacks  of  this  most 
distressing  of  all  maladies  tells  me  that  in  his  case  the 
whole  drama  seems  to  centre  about  the  region  of  the  heart 
and  respiratory  apparatus,  that  his  main  effort  during  the 


378  PSYCHOLOGY. 

attacks  is  to  get  control  of  his  inspirations  and  to  slow  his 
heart,  and  that  the  moment  he  attains  to  breathing  deeply 
and  to  holding  himself  erect,  the  dread,  ipso  facto,  seems 
to  depart. 

The  emotion  here  is  nothing  but  the  feeling  of  a  bodily 
state,  and  it  has  a  purely  bodily  cause. 

The  next  thing  to  be  noticed  is  this,  that  every  one  of 
the  bodily  changes,  whatsoever  it  be,  is  felt,  acutely  or 
obscurely,  the  moment  it  occurs.  If  the  reader  has  never 
paid  attention  to  this  matter,  he  will  be  both  interested 
and  astonished  to  learn  how  many  different  local  bodily 
feelings  he  can  detect  in  himself  as  characteristic  of  his 
various  emotional  moods.  It  would  be  perhaps  too  much 
to  expect  him  to  arrest  the  tide  of  any  strong  gust  of  pas- 
sion for  the  sake  of  any  such  curious  analysis  as  this;  but 
he  can  observe  more  tranquil  states,  and  that  may  be  as- 
sumed here  to  be  true  of  the  greater  which  is  shown  to  be 
true  of  the  less.  Our  whole  cubic  capacity  is  sensibly 
alive;  and  each  morsel  of  it  contributes  its  pulsations  of 
feeling,  dim  or  sharp,  pleasant,  painful,  or  dubious,  to  that 
sense  of  personality  that  every  one  of  us  unfailingly  carries 
with  him.  It  is  surprising  what  little  items  give  accent  to 
these  complexes  of  sensibility.  When  worried  by  any 
slight  trouble,  one  may  find  that  the  focus  of  one's  bodily 
consciousness  is  the  contraction,  often  quite  inconsiderable, 
of  the  eyes  and  brows.  When  momentarily  embarrassed, 
it  is  something  in  the  pharynx  that  compels  either  a  swal- 
low, a  clearing  of  the  throat,  or  a  slight  cough;  and  so  on 
for  as  many  more  instances  as  might  be  named.  The  vari- 
ous permutations  of  which  these  organic  changes  are  sus- 
ceptible make  it  abstractly  possible  that  no  shade  of 
emotion  should  be  without  a  bodily  reverberation  as 
unique,  when  taken  in  its  totality,  as  is  the  mental  mood 
itself.  The  immense  number  of  parts  modified  is  what 
makes  it  so  difficult  for  us  to  reproduce  in  cold  blood  the 
total  and  integral  expression  of  any  one  emotion.  We 
may  catch  the  trick  with  the  voluntary  muscles,  but  fail 


EMOTION.  379 

with  the  skin,  glands,  heart,  and  other  viscera.  Just  as  an 
artificially  imitated  sneeze  lacks  something  of  the  reality, 
so  the  attempt  to  imitate  grief  or  enthusiasm  in  the 
absence  of  its  normal  instigating  cause  is  apt  to  be  rather 
'  hollow.' 

I  now  proceed  to  urge  the  vital  point  of  my  whole 
theory,  which  is  this:  If  we  fancy  some  strong  emotion, 
and  then  try  to  abstract  from  our  consciousness  of  it  all 
the  feelings  of  its  bodily  symptoms,  we  find  ice  have  noth- 
ing left  behind,  no  'mind-stuff'  out  of  which  the  emotion 
can  be  constituted,  and  that  a  cold  and  neutral  state  of  in- 
tellectual perception  is  all  that  remains.  It  is  true  that, 
although  most  people,  when  asked,  say  that  their  introspec- 
tion verifies  this  statement,  some  persist  in  saying  theirs 
does  not.  Many  cannot  be  made  to  understand  the  ques- 
tion. When  you  beg  them  to  imagine  away  every  feeling 
of  laughter  and  of  tendency  to  laugh  from  their  conscious- 
ness of  the  ludicrousness  of  an  object,  and  then  to  tell  you 
what  the  feeling  of  its  ludicrousness  would  be  like,  whether 
it  be  anything  more  than  the  perception  that  the  object 
belongs  to  the  class  'funny,'  they  persist  in  replying  that 
the  thing  proposed  is  a  physical  impossibility,  and  that 
they  always  must  laugh  if  they  see  a  funny  object.  Of 
course  the  task  proposed  is  not  the  practical  one  of  seeing 
a  ludicrous  object  and  annihilating  one's  tendency  to  laugh. 
It  is  the  purely  speculative  one  of  subtracting  certain  ele- 
ments of  feeling  from  an  emotional  state  supposed  to  exist 
in  its  fulness,  and  saying  what  the  residual  elements  are. 
I  cannot  help  thinking  that  all  who  rightly  apprehend 
this  problem  will  agree  with  the  proposition  above  laid 
down.  What  kind  of  an  emotion  of  fear  would  be  left  il 
the  feeling  neither  of  quickened  heart-beats  nor  of  shallow 
breathing,  neither  of  trembling  lips  nor  of  weakened  limbs, 
neither  of  goose-flesh  nor  of  visceral  stirrings,  were  pres- 
ent, it  is  quite  impossible  for  me  to  think.  Can  one  fancy 
the  state  of  rage  ami  picture  no  ebullition  in  the  chest,  no 
flushing  of  the  face,  no  dilatation  of  the  nostrils,  no  clench- 


380  PSYCHO  LOO  Y. 

ing  of  the  teeth,  no  impulse  to  vigorous  action,  but  in  their 
stead  limp  muscles,  calm  breathing,  and  a  placid  face? 
The  present  writer,  for  one,  certainly  cannot.  The  rage  is 
as  completely  evaporated  as  the  sensation  of  its  so-called 
manifestations,  and  the  only  thing  that  can  possibly  be 
supposed  to  take  its  place  is  some  cold-blooded  and  dis- 
passionate judicial  sentence,  confined  entirely  to  the  intel- 
lectual realm,  to  the  effect  that  a  certain  person  or  persons 
merit  chastisement  for  their  sins.  In  like  manner  of  grief: 
what  would  it  be  without  its  tears,  its  sobs,  its  suffocation 
of  the  heart,  its  pang  in  the  breast-bone  ?  A  feelingless 
cognition  that  certain  circumstances  are  deplorable,  and 
nothing  more.  Every  passion  in  turn  tells  the  same  story. 
A  disembodied  human  emotion  is  a  sheer  nonentity.  I 
do  not  say  that  it  is  a  contradiction  in  the  nature  of  things, 
or  that  pure  spirits  are  necessarily  condemned  to  cold  in- 
tellectual lives;  but  I  say  that  for  us  emotion  dissociated 
from  all  bodily  feeling  is  inconceivable.  The  more  closely 
I  scrutinize  my  states,  the  more  persuaded  I  become  that 
whatever  'coarse'  affections  and  passions  I  have  are  in  very 
truth  constituted  bys  and  made  up  of,  those  bodily  changes 
which  we  ordinarily  call  their  expression  or  consequence; 
and  the  more  it  seems  to  me  that,  if  I  were  to  become  cor- 
poreally anaesthetic,  I  should  be  excluded  from  the  life  of 
the  affections,  harsh  and  tender  alike,  and  drag  out  an  ex- 
istence of  merely  cognitive  or  intellectual  form.  Such  an 
existence,  although  it  seems  to  have  been  the  ideal  of  an- 
cient sages,  is  too  apathetic  to  be  keenly  sought  after  by 
those  born  after  the  revival  of  the  worship  of  sensibility,  a 
few  generations  ago. 

Let  not  this  view  be  called  materialistic.  It  is  neither 
more  nor  less  materialistic  than  any  other  view  which  says 
that  our  emotions  are  conditioned  by  nervous  processes. 
No  reader  of  this  book  is  likely  to  rebel  against  such  a 
saying  so  long  as  it  is  expressed  in  general  terms;  and  if 
any  one  still  finds  materialism  in  the  thesis  now  defended, 
that  must  be  because  of  the  special  processes  invoked, 


EMOTION.  381 

They  are  sensational  processes,  processes  due  to  inward 
currents  set  up  by  physical  happenings.  Such  processes 
have,  it  is  true,  always  been  regarded  by  the  platonizers  in 
psychology  as  having  something  peculiarly  base  about 
them.  But  our  emotions  must  always  be  inwardly  what 
they  are,  whatever  be  the  physiological  ground  of  their 
apparition.  If  they  are  deep,  pure,  worthy,  spiritual  facts 
on  any  conceivable  theory  of  their  physiological  source, 
they  remain  no  less  deep,  pure,  spiritual,  and  worthy  of 
regard  on  this  present  sensational  theory.  They  carry 
their  own  inner  measure  of  worth  with  them;  and  it  is 
just  as  logical  to  use  the  present  theory  of  the  emotions  for 
proving  that  sensational  processes  need  not  be  vile  and 
material,  as  to  use  their  vileness  and  materiality  as  a  proof 
that  such  a  theory  cannot  be  true. 

This  view  explains  the  great  variability  of  emotion.  If 
such  a  theory  is  true,  then  each  emotion  is  the  resultant 
of  a  sum  of  elements,  and  each  element  is  caused  by  a 
physiological  process  of  a  sort  already  well  known.  The 
elements  are  all  organic  changes,  and  each  of  them  is  the 
reflex  effect  of  the  exciting  object.  Definite  questions 
now  immediately  arise — questions  very  different  from  those 
which  were  the  only  possible  ones  without  this  view. 
Those  were  questions  of  classification :  "  Which  are  the 
proper  genera  of  emotion,  and  which  the  species  under 
each  ?" — or  of  description :  "  By  what  expression  is  each 
emotion  characterized?"  The  questions  now  are  causal: 
Just  what  changes  does  this  object  and  what  changes  does 
that  object  excite  ?"  and  "  How  come  they  to  excite  these 
particular  changes  and  not  others  ?"  AVe  step  from  a  su- 
perficial to  a  deep  order  of  inquiry.  Classification  and 
description  are  the  lowest  stage  of  science.  They  sink  into 
the  background  the  moment  questions  of  causation  are 
formulated,  and  remain  important  only  so  far  as  they  facil- 
itate our  answering  these.  Now  the  moment  an  emotion 
is  causally  accounted  for,  as  the  arousal  by  an  object  of  a 
lot  of  reflex  acts  which  are  forthwith  felt,  we  immediately 


382  PSYCHOLOGY. 

see  why  there  is  no  limit  to  the  number  of  possible  different 
emotions  which  may  exist,  and  why  the  emotions  of  differ- 
ent individuals  may  vary  indefinitely,  both  as  to  their 
constitution  and  as  to  the  objects  which  call  them  forth. 
For  there  is  nothing  sacramental  or  eternally  fixed  in  re- 
flex action.  Any  sort  of  reflex  effect  is  possible,  and  re- 
flexes actually  vary  indefinitely,  as  we  know. 

In  short,  any  classification  of  the  emotions  is  seen  to  be 
as  true  and  as  (  natural'  as  any  other,  if  it  only  serves 
some  purpose;  and  such  a  question  as  "What  is  the  'real' 
or  '  typical '  expression  of  anger,  or  fear  ?"  is  seen  to  have 
no  objective  meaning  at  all.  Instead  of  it  we  now  have 
the  question  as  to  how  any  given  ' expression'  of  anger  or 
fear  may  have  come  to  exist;  and  that  is  a  real  question  of 
physiological  mechanics  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  history 
on  the  other,  which  (like  all  real  questions)  is  in  essence 
answerable,  although  the  answer  may  be  hard  to  find.  On 
a  later  page  I  shall  mention  the  attempts  to  answer  it 
which  have  been  made. 

A  Corollary  verified.— If  our  theory  be  true,  a  necessary 
corollary  of  it  ought  to  be  this:  that  any  voluntary  and 
cold-blooded  arousal  of  the  so-called  manifestations  of  a 
special  emotion  should  give  us  the  emotion  itself.  Now 
within  the  limits  in  which  it  can  be  verified,  experience 
corroborates  rather  than  disproves  this  inference.  Every- 
one knows  how  panic  is  increased  by  flight,  and  how  the 
giving  way  to  the  symptoms  of  grief  or  anger  increases 
those  passions  themselves.  Each  fit  of  sobbing  makes  the 
sorrow  more  acute,  and  calls  forth  another  fit  stronger 
still,  until  at  last  repose  only  ensues  with  lassitude  and 
with  the  apparent  exhaustion  of  the  machinery.  In  rage, 
it  is  notorious  how  we  'work  ourselves  up'  to  a  climax  by 
repeated  outbreaks  of  expression.  Refuse  to  express  a 
passion,  and  it  dies.  Count  ten  before  venting  your  anger, 
and  its  occasion  seems  ridiculous.  Whistling  to  keep  up 
courage  is  no  mere  figure  of  speech.  On  the  other  hand, 
sit  all  day  in  a  moping  posture,  sigh,  and  reply  to  every- 


EMOTION.  383 

thing  with  a  dismal  voice,  and  your  melancholy  lingers. 
There  is  no  more  valuable  precept  in  moral  education  than 
this,  as  all  who  have  experience  know :  if  we  wish  to  con- 
quer undesirable  emotional  tendencies  in  ourselves,  we 
must  assiduously,  and  in  the  first  instance  cold-bloodedly, 
go  through  the  outward  movements  of  those  contrary  dis- 
positions which  we  prefer  to  cultivate.  The  reward  of 
persistency  will  infallibly  come,  in  the  fading  out  of  the 
sullenness  or  depression,  and  the  advent  of  real  cheerful- 
ness and  kindliness  in  their  stead.  Smooth  the  brow, 
brighten  the  eye,  contract  the  dorsal  rather  than  the  ven- 
tral aspect  of  the  frame,  and  speak  in  a  major  key,  pass 
the  genial  compliment,  and  your  heart  must  be  frigid 
indeed  if  it  do  not  gradually  thaw ! 

Against  this  it  is  to  be  said  that  many  actors  who  per- 
fectly mimic  the. outward  appearances  of  emotion  in  face, 
gait,  and  voice  declare  that  they  feel  no  emotion  at  all. 
Others,  however,  according  to  Mr.  Wm.  Archer,  who  has 
made  a  very  instructive  statistical  inquiry  among  them,  say . 
that  the  emotion  of  the  part  masters  them  whenever  they 
play  it  well.  The  explanation  for  the  discrepancy  amongst 
actors  is  probably  simple.  The  visceral  and  organic  part 
of  the  expression  can  be  suppressed  in  some  men,  but  not 
in  others,  and  on  this  it  must  be  that  the  chief  part  of  the 
felt  emotion  depends.  Those  actors  who  feel  the  emotion 
are  probably  unable,  those  who  are  inwardly  cold  are 
probably  able,  to  affect  the  dissociation  in  a  complete  way. 

An  Objection  replied  to. — It  may  be  objected  to  the 
general  theory  which  I  maintain  that  stopping  the  ex- 
pression of  an  emotion  often  makes  it  worse.  The  funni- 
ness  becomes  quite  excruciating  when  we  are  forbidden  by 
the  situation  to  laugh,  and  anger  pent  in  by  fear  turns 
into  tenfold  hate.  Expressing  either  emotion  freely,  how- 
ever, gives  relief. 

This  objection  is  more  specious  than  real.  During  the 
expression  the  emotion  is  always  felt.  After  it,  the  cen- 
tres having  normally  discharged  themselves,  we  feel  it  no 


384  PSYCHOLOGY. 

more.  But  where  the  facial  part  of  the  discharge  is  sup- 
pressed the  thoracic  and  visceral  may  be  all  the  more 
violent  and  persistent,  as  in  suppressed  laughter;  or  the 
original  emotion  may  be  changed,  by  the  combination  of 
the  provoking  object  with  the  restraining  pressure,  into 
another  emotion  altogether,  in  which  different  and  possibly 
profounder  organic  disturbance  occurs.  If  I  would  kill 
my  enemy  but  dare  not,  my  emotion  is  surely  altogether 
other  than  that  which  would  possess  me  if  I  let  my  anger 
explode. — On  the  whole,  therefore  this  objection  has  no 
weight. 

The  Subtler  Emotions. — In  the  aesthetic  emotions  the 
bodily  reverberation  and  the  feeling  may  both  be  faint. 
A  connoisseur  is  apt  to  judge  a  work  of  art  dryly  and  in- 
tellectually, and  with  no  bodily  thrill.  On  the  other  hand, 
works  of  art  may  arouse  intense  emotion;  and  whenever 
they  do  so,  the  experience  is  completely  covered  by  the 
terms  of  our  theory.  Our  theory  requires  that  incoming 
currents  be  the  basis  of  emotion.  But,  whether  secondary 
organic  reverberations  be  or  be  not  aroused  by  it,  the  per- 
ception of  a  work  of  art  (music,  decoration,  etc.)  is  always 
in  the  first  instance  at  any  rate  an  affair  of  incoming  cur- 
rents. The  work  itself  is  an  object  of  sensation ;  and,  the 
perception  of  an  object  of  sensation  being  a  '  coarse '  or  vivid 
experience,  what  pleasure  goes  with  it  will  partake  of  the 
'  coarse '  or  vivid  form. 

That  there  may  be  subtle  pleasure  too,  I  do  not  deny. 
In  other  words,  there  may  be  purely  cerebral  emotion,  in- 
dependent of  all  currents  from  outside.  Such  feelings  as 
moral  satisfaction,  thankfulness,  curiosity,  relief  at  getting 
a  problem  solved,  may  be  of  this  sort.  But  the  thinness 
and  paleness  of  these  feelings,  when  unmixed  with  bodily 
effects,  is  in  very  striking  contrast  to  the  coarser  emotions. 
In  all  sentimental  and  impressionable  people  the  bodily 
effects  mix  in:  the  voice  breaks  and  the  eyes  moisten  when 
the  moral  truth  is  felt,  etc.  Wherever  there  is  anything 
like  rapture,  however  intellectual  its  ground,  we  find  these 


EMOTION.  385 

secondary  processes  ensue.  Unless  we  actually  laugh  at 
the  neatness  of  the  demonstration  or  witticism ;  unless  we 
thrill  at  the  case  of  justice,  or  tingle  at  the  act  of  mag- 
nanimity, our  state  of  mind  can  hardly  be  called  emotional 
at  all.  It  is  in  fact  a  mere  intellectual  perception  of  how 
certain  things  are  to  be  called — neat,  right,  witty,  gener- 
ous, and  the  like.  Such  a  judicial  state  of  mind  as  this  is 
to  be  classed  among  cognitive  rather  than  among  emotional 
acts. 

Description  of  Fear.— For  the  reasons  given  on  p.  374,  I 
will  append  no  inventory  or  classification  of  emotions  01 
description  of  their  symptoms.  The  reader  has  practically 
almost  all  the  facts  in  his  own  hand.  As  an  example, 
however,  of  the  best  sort  of  descriptive  work  on  the  symp- 
toms, I  will  quote  Darwin's  account  of  them  in  fear. 

"  Fear  is  often  preceded  by  astonishment,  and  is  so  far 
akin  to  it  that  both  lead  to  the  senses  of  sight  and  hearing 
being  instantly  aroused.  In  both  cases  the  eyes  and  mouth 
are  widely  opened  and  the  eyebrows  raised.  The  fright- 
ened man  at  first  stands  like  a  statue,  motionless  and 
breathless,  or  crouches  down  as  if  instinctively  to  escape 
observation.  The  heart  beats  quickly  and  violently,  so  that 
it  palpitates  or  knocks  against  the  ribs;  but  it  is  very  doubt- 
ful if  it  then  works  more  efficiently  than  usual,  so  as  to 
send  a  greater  supply  of  blood  to  all  parts  of  the  body ;  for 
the  skin  instantly  becomes  pale  as  during  incipient  faint- 
ness.  This  paleness  of  the  surface,  however,  is  probably 
in  large  part,  or  is  exclusively,  due  to  the  vaso-motor  cen- 
tre being  affected  in  such  a  manner  as  to  cause  the  con- 
traction of  the  small  arteries  of  the  skin.  That  the  skin 
is  much  affected  under  the  sense  of  great  fear,  we  see  in 
the  marvellous  manner  in  which  perspiration  immediately 
exudes  from  it.  This  exudation  is  all  the  more  remark- 
able, as  the  surface  is  then  cold,  and  hence  the  term,  a  cold 
sweat;  whereas  the  sudorific  glands  are  properly  excited 
into  action  when  the  surface  is  heated.  The  hairs  also 
on  the  skin  stand  erect,  and  the  superficial  muscles  shiver. 


886  PS  TCIIO  LOOT. 

In  connection  with  the  disturbed  action  of  the  heart  the 
breathing  is  hurried.  The  salivary  glands  act  imperfectly; 
the  mouth  becomes  dry  and  is  often  opened  and  shut.  I 
have  also  noticed  that  under  slight  fear  there  is  strong 
tendency  to  yawn.  One  of  the  best  marked  symptoms  is 
the  trembling  of  all  the  muscles  of  the  body;  and  this  is 
it'U'U  first  seen  fn  the  lips.  From  this  cause,  and  from  the 
dryness  of  the  mouth,  the  voice  becomes  husky  or  indis- 
tinct or  may  altogether  fail.  '  Obstupui  steteruntque 
comce,  et  vox  faucibus  hcesit.'  ...  As  fear  increases  into 
an  agony  of  terror,  we  behold,  as  under  all  violent  emo- 
tions, diversified  results.  The  heart  beats  wildly  or  must 
fail  to  act  and  faintness  ensue;  there  is  a  death-like  pallor; 
the  breathing  is  labored;  the  wings  of  the  nostrils  are 
widely  dilated;  there  is  a  gasping  and  convulsive  motion 
of  the  lips,  a  tremor  on  the  hollow  cheek,  a  gulping  and 
catching  of  the  throat;  the  uncovered  and  protruding  eye- 
balls are  fixed  on  the  object  of  terror;  or  they  may  roll 
restlessly  from  side  to  side,  hue  illuc  volens  oculos  tut  unique 
pererrat.  The  pupils  are  said  to  be  enormously  dilated. 
All  the  muscles  of  the  body  may  become  rigid  or  may  be 
thrown  into  convulsive  movements.  The  hands  are  alter- 
nately clenched  and  opened,  often  with  a  twitching  move- 
ment. The  arms  may  be  protruded  as  if  to  avert  some 
dreadful  danger,  or  may  be  thrown  wildly  over  the  head. 
The  Rev.  Mr.  Hagenauer  has  seen  this  latter  action  in  a 
terrified  Australian.  In  other  cases  there  is  a  sudden  and 
uncontrollable  tendency  to  headlong  flight;  and  so  strong 
is  this  that  the  boldest  soldiers  may  be  seized  with  a  sud- 
den panic."* 

Genesis  of  the  Emotional  Reactions. — How  come  the  va- 
rious objects  which  excite  emotion  to  produce  such  special 
and  different  bodily  effects  ?  This  question  was  not  asked 
till  quite  recently,  but  already  some  interesting  suggestions 
towards  answering  it  have  been  made. 

Some  movements  of  expression  can  be  accounted  for  aa 

♦Origin  of  the  Emotions  (N   Y.  ei),  p.  292 


EMOTION.  387 

weakened  repetitions  of  movements  which  formerly  (when 
they  were  stronger)  ivere  of  utility  to  the  subject.  Others 
are  similarly  weakened  repetitions  of  movements  which 
under  other  conditions  were  physiologically  necessary  con- 
comitants of  the  useful  movements.  Of  the  latter  reactions 
the  respiratory  disturbances  in  anger  and  fear  might  be 
taken  as  examples — organic  reminiscences,  as  it  were, 
reverberations  in  imagination  of  the  blowings  of  the  man 
making  a  series  of  combative  efforts,  of  the  pan  tings  of 
one  in  precipitate  flight.  Such  at  least  is  a  suggestion 
made  by  Mr.  Spencer  which  has  found  approval.  And  he 
also  was  the  first,  so  far  as  I  know,  to  suggest  that  other 
movements  in  anger  and  fear  could  be  explained  by  the 
nascent  excitation  of  formerly  useful  acts. 

"  To  have  in  a  slight  degree,"  he  says,  "  such  psychical 
states  as  accompany  the  reception  of  wounds,  and  are  ex- 
perienced during  flight,  is  to  be  in  a  state  of  what  we  call, 
fear.  And  to  have  in  a  slight  degree  such  psychical  states 
as  the  processes  of  catching,  killing,  and  eating  imply,  is 
to  have  the  desires  to  catch,  kill,  and  eat.  That  the  pro- 
pensities to  the  acts  are  nothing  else  than  nascent  excita- 
tions of  the  psychical  state  involved  in  the  acts,  is  proved 
by  the  natural  language  of  the  propensities.  Fear,  when 
strong,  expresses  itself  in  cries,  in  efforts  to  escape,  in  pal- 
pitations, in  tremblings;  and  these  are  just  the  manifesta- 
tions that  go  along  with  an  actual  suffering  of  the  evil 
feared.  The  destructive  passion  is  shown  in  a  general  ten- 
sion of  the  muscular  system,  in  gnashing  of  teeth  and  pro- 
trusion of  the  claws,  in  dilated  eyes  and  nostrils  in  growls; 
and  these  are  weaker  forms  of  the  actions  that  accompany 
the  killing  of  prey.  To  such  objective  evidences  every  one 
can  add  subjective  evidences.  Everyone  can  testify  that 
the  psychical  state  called  fear  consists  of  mental  represen- 
tations of  certain  painful  results;  and  that  the  one  called 
anger  consists  of  mental  representations  of  the  actions  and 
impressions  which  would  occur  while  inflicting  some  kind 
3f  pain." 


888  rsYcnoLOGY. 

The  principle  of  revival,  in  weakened  form,  of  reaction* 
useful  in  more  violent  dealings  with  the  object  inspiring 
the  emotion,  has  found  many  applications.  So  slight  a 
symptom  as  the  snarl  or  sneer,  the  one-sided  uncovering 
of  the  upper  teeth,  is  accounted  for  by  Darwin  as  a  sur- 
vival from  the  time  when  our  ancestors  had  large  canines, 
and  unfleshed  them  (as  dogs  now  do)  for  attack.  Similarly 
the  raising  of  the  eyebrows  in  outward  attention,  the  open- 
ing of  the  mouth  in  astonishment,  come,  according  to  the 
same  author,  from  the  utility  of  these  movements  in  ex- 
treme cases.  The  raising  of  the  eyebrows  goes  with  the 
opening  of  the  eye  for  better  vision;  the  opening  of  the 
mouth  with  the  intensest  listening,  and  with  the  rapid 
catching  of  the  breath  which  precedes  muscular  effort. 
The  distention  of  the  nostrils  in  anger  is  interpreted  by 
Spencer  as  an  echo  of  the  way  in  which  our  ancestors 
had  to  breathe  when,  during  combat,  their  "mouth  was 
filled  up  by  a  part  of  an  antagonist's  body  that  had  been 
seized  "  (!).  The  trembling  of  fear  is  supposed  by  Mante- 
gazza  to  be  for  the  sake  of  warming  the  blood  (!).  The 
reddening  of  the  face  and  neck  is  called  by  Wundt  a  com- 
pensatory arrangement  for  relieving  the  brain  of  the 
blood-pressure  which  the  simultaneous  excitement  of  the 
heart  brings  with  it.  The  effusion  of  tears  is  explained 
both  by  this  author  and  by  Darwin  to  be  a  blood-withdraw- 
ing agency  of  a  similar  sort.  The  contraction  of  the  mus- 
cles around  the  eyes,  of  which  the  primitive  use  is  to  pro- 
tect those  organs  from  being  too  much  gorged  with  blood 
during  the  screaming  fits  of  infancy,  survives  in  adult  life 
in  the  shape  of  the  frown,  which  instantly  comes  over  the 
brow  when  anything  difficult  or  displeasing  presents  itself 
either  to  thought  or  action. 

"  As  the  habit  of  contracting  the  brows  has  been  fol- 
lowed by  infants  during  innumerable  generations,  at  the 
commencement  of  every  crying  or  screaming  fit,"  says 
Darwin,  "  it  has  become  firmly  associated  with  the  incip- 
ient sense  of  something  distressing  or  disagreeable.    Hence, 


EMOTION.  389 

under  similar  circumstances,  it  would  be  apt  to  be  con- 
tinued during  maturity,  although  never  then  developed, 
into  a  crying  fit.  Screaming  or  weeping  begins  to  be  volun- 
tarily restrained  at  an  early  period  of  life,  whereas  frowning 
is  hardly  ever  restrained  at  any  age/* 

Another  principle,  to  which  Darwin  perhaps  hardly 
does  sufficient  justice,  may  be  called  the  principle  of 
reacting  similarly  to  analogous-feeling  stimuli.  There  is 
a  whole  vocabulary  of  descriptive  adjectives  common  to 
impressions  belonging  to  different  sensible  spheres — expe- 
riences of  all  classes  are  sweet,  impressions  of  all  classes 
rich  or  solid,  sensations  of  all  classes  sharp.  "Wundt  and 
Piderit  accordingly  explain  many  of  our  most  expressive 
reactions  upon  moral  causes  as  symbolic  gustatory  move- 
ments. As  soon  as  any  experience  arises  which  has  an 
affinity  with  the  feeling  of  sweet,  or  bitter,  or  sour,  the 
same  movements  are  executed  which  would  result  from 
the  taste  in  point.  "All  the  states  of  mind  which  lan- 
guage designates  by  the  metaphors  bitter,  harsh,  sweet, 
combine  themselves,  therefore,  with  the  corresponding 
mimetic  movements  of  the  mouth."  Certainly  the  emo- 
tions of  disgust  and  satisfaction  do  express  themselves  in 
this  mimetic  way.  Disgust  is  an  incipent  regurgitation 
or  retching,  limiting  its  expression  often  to  the  grimace  of 
the  lips  and  nose;  satisfaction  goes  with  a  sucking  smile, 
or  tasting  motion  of  the  lips.  The  ordinary  gesture  of 
negation — among  us,  moving  the  head  about  its  axis  from 
side  to  side — is  a  reaction  originally  used  by  babies  to  keep 
disagreeables  from  getting  into  their  mouth,  and  may  be 
observed  in  perfection  in  any  nursery.  It  is  now  evoked 
where  the  stimulus  is  only  an  unwelcome  idea.  Simi- 
larly the  nod  forward  in  affirmation  is  after  the  analogy  of 
taking  food  into  the  mouth.  The  connection  of  the  ex- 
pression of  moral  or  social  disdain  or  dislike,  especially  in 
women,  with  movements  having  a  perfectly  definite  origi- 
nal olfactory  function,  is  too  obvious  for  comment.   Wink- 


390  PSYCHOLOGY. 

iiiiX  is  the  effect  of  any  threatening  surprise,  not  only  of 
what  puts  the  eyes  in  danger;  and  a  momentary  aversion 
of  the  eyes  is  very  apt  to  he  one's  first  symptom  of  response 
to  an  unexpectedly  unwelcome  proposition. — These  may 
suffice  as  examples  of  movements  expressive  from  analogy. 
But  if  certain  of  our  emotional  reactions  can  be  ex- 
plained by  the  two  principles  invoked — and  the  reader  will 
himself  have  felt  how  conjectural  and  fallible  in  some  of 
the  instances  the  explanation  is — there  remain  many  reac- 
tions which  cannot  so  be  explained  at  all,  and  these  we 
must  write  down  for  the  present  as  purely  idiopathic  effects 
of  the  stimulus.  Amongst  them  are  the  effects  on  the 
viscera  and  internal  glands,  the  dryness  of  the  mouth  and 
diarrhoea  and  nausea  of  fear,  the  liver-disturbances  which 
sometimes  produce  jaundice  after  excessive  rage,  the 
urinary  secretion  of  sanguine  excitement,  and  the  bladder- 
contraction  of  apprehension,  the  gaping  of  expectancy, 
the  'lump  in  the  throat'  of  grief,  the  tickling  there  and 
the  swallowing  of  embarrassment,  the  '  precordial  anxiety ' 
of  dread,  the  changes  in  the  pupil,  the  various  sweatings 
of  the  skin,  cold  or  hot,  local  or  general,  and  its  flushings, 
together  with  other  symptoms  which  jirobably  exist  but 
are  too  hidden  to  have  been  noticed  or  named.  Trem- 
bling, which  is  found  in  many  excitements  besides  that  of 
terror,  is,  pace  Mr.  Spencer  and  Sig.  Mantegazza,  quite 
pathological.  So  are  terror's  other  strong  symptoms:  they 
are  harmful  to  the  creature  who  presents  them.  In  an 
organism  as  complex  as  the  nervous  system  there  must  be 
many  incidental  reactions  which  would  never  themselves 
have  been  evolved  independently,  for  any  utility  they  might 
possess.  Sea-sickness,  ticklishness,  shyness,  the  love  of 
music,  of  the  various  intoxicants,  nay,  the  entire  aesthetic 
life  of  man,  must  be  traced  to  this  accidental  origin.  It 
would  be  foolish  to  suppose  that  none  of  the  reactions 
called  emotional  could  have  arisen  in  this  <^asj-accidental 
way. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

INSTINCT. 

Its  Definition. — Instinct  is  usually  defined  as  the  faculty 
of  acting  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  certain  ends,  without 
foresight  of  the  ends,  and  without  previous  education  in 
the  performance.  Instincts  are  the  functional  correlatives 
of  structure.  With  the  presence  of  a  certain  organ  goes., 
one  may  say,  almost  always  a  native  aptitude  for  its  use. 

The  actions  we  call  instinctive  all  conform  to  the  gen- 
eral reflex  type;  they  are  called  forth  by  determinate 
sensory  stimuli  in  contact  with  the  animal's  body,  or  at 
a  distance  in  his  environment.  The  cat  runs  after  the 
mouse,  runs  or  sL  ows  fight  before  the  dog,  avoids  falling 
from  walls  and  trees,  shuns  fire  and  water,  etc.,  not 
because  he  has  any  notion  either  of  life  or  of  death,  or  of 
self,  or  of  preservation.  He  has  probably  attained  to  no 
one  of  these  conceptions  in  such  a  way  as  to  react  definitely 
upon  it.  He  acts  in  each  case  separately,  and  simply 
because  he  cannot  help  it;  being  so  framed  that  when  that 
particular  running  thing  called  a  mouse  appears  in  his 
field  of  vision  he  must  pursue;  that  when  that  particular 
barking  and  obstreperous  thing  called  a  dog  appears  there 
he  must  retire,  if  at  a  distance,  and  scratch  if  close  by; 
that  he  must  withdraw  his  feet  from  water  and  his  face 
from  flame,  etc.  His  nervous  system  is  to  a  great  extent  a 
preorganized  bundle  of  such  reactions — they  are  as  fatal  as 
sneezing,  and  as  exactly  correlated  to  their  special  excitants 
as  it  is  to  its  own.  Although  the  naturalist  may,  for  his 
own  convenience,  class  these  reactions  under  general  heads, 
he  must  not  forget  that  in  the  animal  it  is  a  particular  sen- 
sation or  perception  or  image  which  calls  them  forth, 


392  PSYCHOLOGY. 

At  first  this  view  astounds  us  by  the  enormous  number 
of  special  adjustments  it  supposes  animals  to  possess  ready- 
made  in  anticipation  of  the  outer  things  among  which  they 
are  to  dwell.  Can  mutual  dependence  be  so  intricate  and 
go  so  far  ?  Is  each  thing  born  fitted  to  particular  other 
things,  and  to  them  exclusively,  as  locks  are  fitted  to  their 
keys  ?  Undoubtedly  this  must  be  believed  to  be  so.  Each 
nook  and  cranny  of  creation,  down  to  our  very  skin  and 
entrails,  has  its  living  inhabitants,  with  organs  suited  to 
the  place,  to  devour  and  digest  the  food  it  harbors  and  to 
meet  the  dangers  it  conceals;  and  the  minuteness  of  adap- 
tation thus  shown  in  the  way  of  structure  knows  no 
bounds.  Even  so  are  there  no  bounds  to  the  minuteness 
of  adaptation  in  the  way  of  conduct  which  the  several 
inhabitants  display. 

The  older  writings  on  instinct  are  ineffectual  wastes  of 
words,  because  their  authors  never  came  down  to  this  defi- 
nite and  simple  point  of  view,  but  smothered  everything 
in  vague  wonder  at  the  clairvoyant  and  prophetic  power  of 
the  animals — so  superior  to  anything  in  man — and  at  the 
beneficence  of  God  in  endowing  them  with  such  a  gift. 
But  God's  beneficence  endows  them,  first  of  all,  with  a 
nervous  system;  and,  turning  our  attention  to  this,  makes 
instinct  immediately  appear  neither  more  nor  less  wonder- 
ful than  all  the  other  facts  of  life. 

Every  instinct  is  an  impulse.  Whether  we  shall  call 
such  impulses  as  blushing,  sneezing,  coughing,  smiling,  or 
dodging,  or  keeping  time  to  music,  instincts  or  not,  is  a 
mere  matter  of  terminology.  The  process  is  the  same 
throughout.  In  his  delightfully  fresh  and  interesting 
work,  '  Der  Thierische  Wille,'  Herr  G.  H.  Schneider  sub- 
divides impulses  (Triebe)  into  sensation-impulses,  percep- 
tion-impulses, and  idea-impulses.  To  crouch  from  cold  is 
a  sensation-impulse;  to  turn  and  follow,  if  we  see  people 
running  one  way,  is  a  perception-impulse;  to  cast  about 
for  cover,  if  it  begins  to  blow  and  rain,  is  an  imagination- 
impulse.     A  single  complex  instinctive  action  may  involve 


INSTINCT.  393 

successively  the  awakening  of  impulses  of  all  three  classes. 
Thus  a  hungry  lion  starts  to  seek  prey  by  the  awakening 
in  him  of  imagination  coupled  with  desire;  he  begins  to 
stalk  it  when,  on  eye,  ear,  or  nostril,  he  gets  an  impression 
of  its  presence  at  a  certain  distance;  he  springs  upon  it, 
either  when  the  booty  takes  alarm  and  flees,  or  when  the 
distance  is  sufficiently  reduced;  he  proceeds  to  tear  and 
devour  it  the  moment  he  gets  a  sensation  of  its  contact 
with  his  claws  and  fangs.  Seeking,  stalking,  springing,  and 
devouring  are  just  so  many  different  kinds  of  muscular 
contraction,  and  neither  kind  is  called  forth  by  the  stimu- 
lus appropriate  to  the  other. 

Noiu,  why  do  the  various  animals  do  what  seem  to  us  such 
strange  things,  in  the  presence  of  such  outlandish  stimuli  ? 
Why  does  the  hen,  for  example,  submit  herself  to  the 
tedium  of  incubating  such  a  fearfully  uninteresting  set  of 
objects  as  a  nestful  of  eggs,  unless  she  have  some  sort  of  a 
prophetic  inkling  of  the  result  ?  The  only  answer  is  ad 
hominem.  We  can  only  interpret  the  instincts  of  brutes 
by  what  we  know  of  instincts  in  ourselves.  Why  do  men 
always  lie  down,  when  they  can,  on  soft  beds  rather  than 
on  hard  floors  ?  Why  do  they  sit  round  the  stove  on  a 
cold  day  ?  Why,  in  a  room,  do  they  place  themselves, 
ninety-nine  times  out  of  a  hundred,  with  their  faces 
towards  its  middle  rather  than  to  the  wall  ?  Why  do  they 
prefer  saddle  of  mutton  and  champagne  to  hard-tack  and 
ditch-water?  Why  does  the  maiden  interest  the  youth  so 
that  everything  about  her  seems  more  important  and  sig- 
nificant than  anything  else  in  the  world  ?  Nothing  more 
can  be  said  than  that  these  are  human  ways,  and  that 
every  creature  likes  its  own  ways,  and  takes  to  the  follow- 
ing them  as  a  matter  of  course.  Science  may  come  and 
consider  these  ways,  and  find  that  most  of  them  are  useful. 
But  it  is  not  for  the  sake  of  their  utility  that  they  are  fol- 
lowed, but  because  at  the  moment  of  following  them  we 
feel  that  that  is  the  only  appropriate  and  natural  thing  to 
do.     Not  one  man  in  a  billion,  when  taking  his  dinner, 


394  PSYCHOLOGY. 

ever  thinks  of  utility,  lie  eats  because  the  food  tastes 
good  and  makes  him  want  more.  If  you  ask  him  why  he 
should  want  to  eat  more  of  what  tastes  like  that,  instead 
of  revering  you  as  a  philosopher  he  will  probably  laugh  at 
you  for  a  fool.  The  connection  between  the  savory  sensa- 
tion and  the  act  it  awakens  is  for  him  absolute  and  selbst- 
verstdndlich,  an  'a  priori  synthesis'  of  the  most  perfect 
sort,  needing  no  proof  but  its  own  evidence.  It  takes,  in 
short,  what  Berkeley  calls  a  mind  debauched  by  learning 
to  carry  the  process  of  making  the  natural  seem  strange, 
so  far  as  to  ask  for  the  why  of  any  instinctive  human  act. 
To  the  metaphysician  alone  can  such  questions  occur  as: 
Why  do  we  smile,  when  pleased,  and  not  scowl  ?  Why  are 
we  unable  to  talk  to  a  crowd  as  we  talk  to  a  single  friend  ? 
Why  does  a  particular  maiden  turn  our  wits  so  upside- 
down  ?  The  common  man  can  only  say,  "Of  course  we 
smile,  of  course  our  heart  palpitates  at  the  sight  of  the 
crowd,  of  course  we  love  the  maiden,  that  beautiful  soul 
clad  in  that  perfect  form,  so  palpably  and  flagrantly  made 
from  all  eternity  to  be  loved!" 

And  so,  probably,  does  each  animal  feel  about  the  par- 
ticular things  it  tends  to  do  in  presence  of  particular  ob- 
jects. They,  too,  are  a  priori  syntheses.  To  the  lion  it  is 
the  lioness  which  is  made  to  be  loved;  to  the  bear,  the  she- 
bear.  To  the  broody  hen  the  notion  would  probably  seem 
monstrous  that  there  should  be  a  creature  in  the  world  to 
whom  a  nestful  of  eggs  was  not  the  utterly  fascinating  and 
precious  and  never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon  object  which 
it  is  to  her. 

Thus  we  may  be  sure  that,  however  mysterious  some 
animals'  instincts  may  appear  to  us,  our  instincts  will 
appear  no  less  mysterious  to  them.  And  we  may  conclude 
that,  to  the  animal  which  obeys  it,  every  impulse  and 
every  step  of  every  instinct  shines  with  its  own  sufficient 
light,  and  seems  at  the  moment  the  only  eternally  right 
and  proper  thing  to  do.  It  is  done  for  its  own  sake  exclu- 
sively.    What  voluptuous  thrill  may  not  shake  a  fly,  when 


INSTINCT.  395 

she  at  last  discovers  the  one  particular  leaf,  or  carrion,  or 
bit  of  dung,  that  out  of  all  the  world  can  stimulate  her 
ovipositor  to  its  discharge  ?  Does  not  the  discharge  then 
seem  to  her  the  only  fitting  thing  ?  And  need  she  care  or 
know  anything  about  the  future  maggot  and  its  food  ? 

Instincts  are  not  always  blind  or  invariable.     Nothing 
is  commoner  than  the  remark  that  man  differs  from  lower 
creatures  by  the.almost  total  absence  of  instincts,  and  the 
assumption  of  their  work  in  him  by  'reason.'     A  fruitless 
discussion  might  be  waged  on  this  point  by  two  theorizers 
who  were  careful  not  to  define  their  terms.     We  must  of 
course  avoid  a  quarrel  about  words,  and  the  facts  of  the 
case   are   really  tolerably  plain.     Man  has  a  far  greater 
variety  of  impulses  than  any  lower  animal;  and  any  one 
of   these   impulses,  taken   in   itself,  is  as  'blind'  as  the 
lowest   instinct   can   be;    but,  owing   to   man's   memory, 
power  of   reflection,  and  power  of   inference,  they  come 
each  one  to  be  felt  by  him,  after  he  has  once  yielded  to 
them  and  experienced  their  results,  in  connection  with  a 
foresight  of  those  results.     In  this  condition  an  impulse 
acted  out  may  be  said  to  be  acted  out,  in  part  at  least,  for 
the  sake  of  its  results.     It  is  obvious  that  every  instinctive 
act,  in  an  animal  until  memory,  must  cease  to  be  'blind' 
after  being  once  repeated,  and  must  be  accompanied  with 
foresight  of  its  '  end  '  just  so  far  as  that  end  may  have 
fallen  under  the  animal's  cognizance.     An  insect  that  lays 
her  eggs  in  a  place  where  she  never  sees  them  hatched 
must  always  do  so  '  blindly ' ;  but  a  hen  who  has  already 
hatched  a  brood  can  hardly  be  assumed  to  sit  with  perfect 
*  blindness  '  on  her  second  nest.     Some  expectation  of  con- 
sequences must  in  every  case  like  this  be  aroused;  and 
this   expectation,  according   as   it   is   that   of   something 
desired  or  of  something  disliked,  must  necessarily  either 
re-enforce  or  inhibit  the  mere  impulse.     The  hen's  idea  of 
the  chickens  would  probably  encourage  her  to  sit;  a  rat's 
memory,  on  the  other  hand,  of  a  former  escape  from  a  trap 
would  neutralize  his  impulse  to  take  bait  from  anything 


396  PSYCHOLOGY. 

that  reminded  him  of  that  trap.  If  a  boy  sees  a  fat  hop- 
ping-toad,  he  probably  has  incontinently  an  impulse  (espe- 
cially if  with  other  boys)  to  smash  the  creature  with  a 
stone,  which  impulse  we  may  suppose  him  blindly  to  obey. 
But  something  in  the  expression  of  the  dying  toad's 
clasped  hands  suggests  the  meanness  of  the  act,  or 
reminds  him  of  sayings  he  has  heard  about  the  sufferings 
of  animals  being  like  his  own;  so  that,  when  next  he  is 
tempted  by  a  toad,  an  idea  arises  which,  far  from  spurring 
him  again  to  the  torment,  prompts  kindly  actions,  and 
may  even  make  him  the  toad's  champion  against  less 
reflecting  boys. 

It  is  plain,  then,  that,  no  matter  how  well  endowed  an 
animal  may  originally  be  in  the  icay  of  instincts,  his 
resultant  actions  will  be  much  modified  if  the  instincts 
combine  with  experience,  if  in  addition  to  impulses  he  have 
memories,  associations,  inferences,  and  expectations,  on 
any  considerable  scale.  An  object  0,  on  which  he  has 
an  instinctive  impulse  to  react  in  the  manner  A,  would 
directly  provoke  him  to  that  reaction.  But  0  has  mean- 
time become  for  him  a  sign  of  the  nearness  of  P,  on  which 
he  has  an  equally  strong  impulse  to  react  in  the  manner 
B,  quite  unlike  A.  So  that  when  he  meets  0,  the  immedi- 
ate impulse  A  and  the  remote  impulse  B  struggle  in  his 
breast  for  the  mastery.  The  fatality  and  uniformity  said 
to  be  characteristic  of  instinctive  actions  will  be  so  little 
manifest  that  one  might  be  tempted  to  deny  to  him  alto- 
gether the  possession  of  any  instinct  about  the  object  0. 
Yet  how  false  this  judgment  would  be!  The  instinct 
about  0  is  there;  only  by  the  complication  of  the  associa- 
tive machinery  it  has  come  into  conflict  with  another 
instinct  about  P. 

Here  we  immediately  reap  the  good  fruits  of  our  simple 
physiological  conception  of  what  an  instinct  is.  If  it  be  a 
mere  excito-motor  impulse,  due  to  the  preexistence  of  a 
certain  '  reflex  arc  '  in  the  nerve-centres  of  the  creature,  of 
course  it  must  follow  the  law  of  all  such  reflex  arcs.     One 


INSTINCT.  397 

liability  of  such  arcs  is  to  have  their  activity  '  inhibited '  by 
other  processes  going  on  at  the  same  time.  It  makes  no 
difference  whether  the  arc  be  organized  at  birth,  or  ripen 
spontaneously  later,  or  be  due  to  acquired  habit;  it  must 
take  its  chances  with  all  the  other  arcs,  and  sometimes 
succeed,  and  sometimes  fail,  in  drafting  off  the  currents 
through  itself.  The  mystical  view  of  an  instinct  would 
make  it  invariable.  The  physiological  view  would  require 
it  to  show  occasional  irregularities  in  any  animal  in  whom 
the  number  of  separate  instincts,  and  the  possible  entrance 
of  the  same  stimulus  into  several  of  them,  were  great. 
And  such  irregularities  are  what  every  superior  animal's 
instincts  do  show  in  abundance. 

Wherever  the  mind  is  elevated  enough  to  discriminate; 
wherever  several  distinct  sensory  elements  must  combine 
to  discharge  the  reflex  arc;  wherever,  instead  of  plumping 
into  action  instantly  at  the  first  rough  intimation  of  what 
sort  of  a  thing  is  there,  the  agent  waits  to  see  which  one  of 
its  kind  it  is  and  what  the  circumstances  are  of  its  appear- 
ance; wherever  different  individuals  and  different  circum- 
stances can  impel  him  in  different  ways;  wherever  these 
are  the  conditions — we  have  a  masking  of  the  elementary 
constitution  of  the  instinctive  life.  The  whole  story  of 
our  dealings  with  the  lower  wild  animals  is  the  history 
of  our  taking  advantage  of  the  way  in  which  they  judge 
of  everything  by  its  mere  label,  as  it  were,  so  as  to  ensnare 
or  kill  them.  Nature,  in  them,  has  left  matters  in  this 
rough  way,  and  made  them  act  always  in  the  manner 
which  would  be  oftenest  right.  There  are  more  worms 
unattached  to  hooks  than  impaled  upon  them;  therefore, 
on  the  whole,  says  Nature  to  her  fishy  children,  bite  at 
every  worm  and  take  your  chances.  But  as  her  children 
get  higher,  and  their  lives  more  precious,  she  reduces  the 
risks.  Since  what  seems  to  be  the  same  object  may  be 
now  a  genuine  food  and  now  a  bait;  since  in  gregarious 
species  each  individual  may  prove  to  be  either  the  friend 
or  the  rival,  according  to  the  circumstances,  of  another; 


308  PSYCHOLOGY. 

since  .any  entirely  unknown  object  may  be  fraught  with 
weal  or  woe.  Nature  implants  contrary  impulses  to  act  on 
many  classes  of  things,  &nd  leaves  it  to  slight  alterations 
in  the  conditions  of  the  individual  case  to  decide  which 
impulse  shall  carry  the  day.  Thus,  greediness  and  sus- 
picion, curiosity  and  timidity,  coyness  and  desire,  bash- 
fulness  and  vanity,  sociability  and  pugnacity,  seem  to 
shoot  over  into  each  other  as  quickly,  and  to  remain  in  as 
unstable  an  equilibrium,  in  the  higher  birds  and  mammals 
as  in  man.  All  are  impulses,  congenital,  blind  at  first,  and 
productive  of  motor  reactions  of  a  rigorously  determinate 
sort.  Each  one  of  t hem  then  is  an  instinct,  as  instincts  are 
commonly  defined.  But  they  contradict  each  other — '  ex- 
perience' in  each  particular  opportunity  of  application 
usually  deciding  the  issue.  The  animal  that  exhibits  them 
loses  the  '  instinctive  '  demeanor  and  appears  to  lead  a  life 
of  hesitation  and  choice,  an  intellectual  life;  not,  however, 
because  he  has  no  instincts — rather  because  he  has  so  many 
that  they  block  each  other's  pal 'h. 

Thus  we  may  confidently  say  that  however  uncertain 
man's  reactions  upon  his  environment  may  sometimes 
seem  in  comparison  with  those  of  lower  mammalB,  the 
uncertainty  is  probably  not  due  to  their  possession  of  any 
principles  of  action  which  he  lacks.  On  the  contrary,  man 
possesses  all  the  impulses  that  they  have,  and  a  great  many 
more  besides.  In  other  words,  there  is  no  material  antag- 
onism between  instinct  and  reason.  Reason,  per  se,  can 
inhibit  no  impulses;  the  only  thing  that  can  neutralize  an 
impulse  is  an  impulse  the  other  way.  Reason  may,  how- 
ever, make  an  inference  which  will  excite  the  imagination 
so  as  to  let  loose  the  impulse  the  other  way;  and  thus, 
though  the  animal  richest  in  reason  is  also  the  animal 
richest  in  instinctive  impulses  too,  he  never  seems  the 
fatal  automaton  whichamere^  instinctive  animal  must  be. 

Two  Principles  of  Non-uniformity. — Instincts  may  be 
masked  in  the  mature  animal's  life  by  two  other  causes. 
These  are: 


INSTINCT.  399 

a.  The  inhibition  of  instincts  by  habits;  and 

b.  The  transitoriness  of  instincts. 

a.  The  law  of  inhibition  of  instincts  by  habits  is  this: 
Wlien  objects  of  a  certain  class  elicit  from  an  animal  a 
certain  sort  of  reaction,  it  often  happens  that  the  animal 
becomes  partial  to  the  first  specimen  of  the  class  on  which 
it  has  reacted,  and  will  not  afterward  react  on  any  other 
specimen. 

The  selection  of  a  particular  hole  to  live  in,  of  a  par- 
ticular mate,  of  a  particular  feeding-ground,  a  particular 
variety  of  diet,  a  particular  anything,  in  short,  out  of  a 
possible  multitude,  is  a  very  wide-spread  tendency  among 
animals,  even  those  low  down  in  the  scale.  The  limpet 
will  return  to  the  same  sticking-place  in  its  rock,  and  the 
lobster  to  its  favorite  nook  on  the  sea-bottom.  The  rabbit 
will  deposit  its  dung  in  the  same  corner;  the  bird  makes 
its  nest  on  the  same  bough.  But  each  of  these  preferences 
carries  with  it  an  insensibility  to  other  opportunities  and 
occasions — an  insensibility  which  can  only  be  described 
physiologically  as  an  inhibition  of  new  impulses  by  the 
habit  of  old  ones  already  formed.  The  possession  of  homes 
and  wives  of  our  own  makes  us  strangely  insensible  to  the 
charms  of  those  of  other  people.  Few  of  us  are  adventur- 
ous in  the  matter  of  food ;  in  fact,  most  of  us  think  there 
is  something  disgusting  in  a  bill  of  fare  to  which  we  are 
unused.  Strangers,  we  are  apt  to  think,  cannot  be  worth 
knowing,  especially  if  they  come  from  distant  cities,  etc. 
The  original  impulse  which  got  us  homes,  wives,  dietaries, 
and  friends  at  all,  seems  to  exhaust  itself  in  its  first 
achievements  and  to  leave  no  surplus  energy  for  reacting 
on  new  cases.  And  so  it  comes  about  that,  witnessing  this 
torpor,  an  observer  of  mankind  might  say  that  no  instinc- 
tive propensity  toward  certain  objects  existed  at  all.  It 
existed,  but  it  existed  miscellaneously,  or  as  an  instinct 
pure  and  simple,  only  before  habit  was  formed.  A  habit, 
ovce  grafted  on  an  instinctive  tendency,  restricts  the  range 
01  i  he  tendency  itself,  and  keeps  us  from  reacting  on  any 


400  PSYCHOLOGY. 

but  the  habitual  object,  although  other  objects  might  just 
as  well  have  been  chosen  had  they  been  the  first-comers. 

Another  sort  of  arrest  of  instinct  by  habit  is  where  the 
Bame  class  of  objects  awakens  contrary  instinctive  impulses. 
Here  the  impulse  first  followed  toward  a  given  individual 
of  the  class  is  apt  to  keep  him  from  ever  awakening  the 
opposite  impulse  in  us.  In  fact,  the  whole  class  may  be 
protected  by  this  individual  specimen  from  the  application 
to  it  of  the  other  impulse.  Animals,  for  example,  awaken 
in  a  child  the  opposite  impulses  of  fearing  and  fondling. 
But  if  a  child,  in  his  first  attempts  to  pat  a  dog,  gets 
snapped  at  or  bitten,  so  that  the  impulse  of  fear  is  strongly 
aroused,  it  may  be  that  for  years  to  come  no  dog  will  excite 
in  him  the  impulse  to  fondle  again.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  greatest  natural  enemies,  if  carefully  introduced  to 
each  other  when  young  and  guided  at  the  outset  by 
superior  authority,  settle  down  into  those  '  happy  fami- 
lies '  of  friends  which  we  see  in  our  menageries,  Young 
animals,  immediately  after  birth,  have  no  instinct  of  fear, 
but  show  their  dependence  by  allowing  themselves  to  be 
freely  handled.  Later,  however,  they  grow  '  wild/  and,  if 
left  to  themselves,  will  not  let  man  approach  them.  I  am 
told  by  farmers  in  the  Adirondack  wilderness  that  it  is  a 
very  serious  matter  if  a  cow  wanders  off  and  calves  in  the 
woods  and  is  not  found  for  a  week  or  more.  The  calf,  by 
that  time,  is  as  wild  and  almost  as  fleet  as  a  deer,  and  hard 
to  capture  without  violence.  But  calves  rarely  show  any 
wildness  to  the  men  who  have  been  in  contact  with  them 
during  the  first  days  of  their  life,  when  the  instinct  to 
attach  themselves  is  uppermost,  nor  do  they  dread  strangers 
as  they  would  if  brought  up  wild. 

Chickens  give  a  curious  illustration  of  the  same  law. 
M  r.  Spalding's  wonderful  article  on  instinct  shall  supply 
us  with  the  facts.  These  little  creatures  show  opposite 
instincts  of  attachment  and  fear,  either  of  which  mav  be 
aroused  by  the  same  object,  man.  If  a  chick  is  born  in 
the  absence  of  the  hen,  it  "  will  follow  any  moving  object. 


INSTINCT.  401 

And  when  guided  by  sight  alone,  they  seem  to  have  no 
more  disposition  to  follow  a  hen  than  to  follow  a  duck  or 
a  human  being.  Unreflecting  lookers-on,  when  they  saw 
chickens  a  day  old  running  after  me,"  says  Mr.  Spalding, 
"  and  older  ones  following  me  for  miles,  and  answering  to 
my  whistle,  imagined  that  I  must  have  some  occult  power 
over  the  creatures:  whereas  I  had  simply  allowed  them  to 
follow  me  from  the  first.  There  is  the  instinct  to  follow; 
and  the  ear,  prior  to  experience,  attaches  them  to  the  right 
object."  * 

But  if  a  man  presents  himself  for  the  first  time  when 
the  instinct  of  fear  is  strong,  the  phenomena  are  altogether 
reversed.  Mr.  Spalding  kept  three  chickens  hooded  until 
they  were  nearly  four  days  old,  and  thus  describes  their 
behavior : 

"  Each  of  them,  on  being  unhooded,  evinced  the  greatest 
terror  to  me,  dashing  off  in  the  opposite  direction  whenever 
I  sought  to  approach  it.  The  table  on  which  they  were 
unhooded  stood  before  a  window,  and  each  in  its  turn  beat 
against  the  window  like  a  wild  bird.  One  of  them  darted 
behind  some  books,  and,  squeezing  itself  into  a  corner, 
remained  cowering  for  a  length  of  time.  We  might  guess 
at  the  meaning  of  this  strange  and  exceptional  wildness; 
bnt  the  odd  fact  is  enough  for  my  present  purpose.  What- 
ever might  have  been  the  meaning  of  this  marked  change 
in  their  mental  constitution — had  they  been  unhooded  on 
the  previous  day  they  would  have  run  to  me  instead  of 
from  me — it  could  not  have  been  the  effect  of  experience; 
it  must  have  resulted  wholly  from  changes  in  their  own 
organizations."  f 

Their  case  was  precisely  analogous  to  that  of  the  Adi- 
rondack calves.  The  two  opposite  instincts  relative  to  the 
same  object  ripen  in  succession.  If  the  first  one  engenders 
a  habit,  that  habit  will  inhibit  the  application  of  the  second 


*  Spalding,  Macmillan's  Magazine,  Feb.  1873,  p.  287. 
f  Ibid.,  p.  289. 


402  PSYCHOLOGY. 

instinct  to  that  object.  All  animals  are  tame  during  the 
earliest  phase  of  their  infancy.  Habits  formed  then  limit 
the  effects  of  whatever  instincts  of  wildness  may  later  be 
evolved. 

b.  This  leads  us  to  the  law  of  transitoriness,  which  is 
this:  Many  instincts  ripen  at  a  certain  age  and  then  fade 
aivay.  A  consequence  of  this  law  is  that  if,  during  the 
time  of  such  an  instinct's  vivacity,  objects  adequate  to 
arouse  it  are  met  with,  a  habit  of  acting  on  them  is 
formed,  which  remains  when  the  original  instinct  has 
passed  away;  but  that  if  no  such  objects  are  met  with, 
then  no  habit  will  be  formed ;  and,  later  on  in  life,  when 
the  animal  meets  the  objects,  he  will  altogether  fail  to 
react,  as  at  the  earlier  epoch  he  would  instinctively  have 
done. 

No  doubt  such  a  law  is  restricted.  Some  instincts  are 
far  less  transient  than  others — those  connected  with  feed- 
ing and  'self-preservation'  may  hardly  be  transient  at  all, 
— and  some,  after  fading  out  for  a  time,  recur  as  strong  as 
ever;  e.g.,  the  instincts  of  pairing  and  rearing  young. 
The  law,  however,  though  not  absolute,  is  certainly  very 
widespread,  and  a  few  examples  will  illustrate  just  what 
it  means. 

In  the  chickens  and  calves  above  mentioned  it  is  obvious 
that  the  instinct  to  follow  and  become  attached  fades  out 
after  a  few  days,  and  that  the  instinct  of  flight  then  take 
its.  place,  the  conduct  of  the  creature  toward  man  being 
decided  by  the  formation  or  non-formation  of  a  certain 
habit  during  those  days.  The  transiency  of  the  chicken's 
instinct  to  follow  is  nlso  proved  by  its  conduct  toward  the 
hen.  Mr.  Spalding  kept  some  chickens  shut  up  till  they 
were  comparatively  old,  and,  speaking  of  these,  he  says: 

"A  chicken  that  lias  not  heard  the  call  of  the  mother 
until  eight  or  ten  days  old  then  hears  it  as  if  it  heard  jt 
not.  I  regret  to  find  that  on  this  point  my  notes  are  not 
so  full  as  1  could  wish,  or  as  they  might  have  been.  There 
is,  however,  an  account  of  one  chicken  that  could  not  be 


INSTINCT.  403 

returned  to  the  mother  when  ten  days  old.  The  hen  fol- 
lowed it,  and  tried  to  entice  it  in  every  way;  still,  it  con- 
tinually left  her  and  ran  to  the  house  or  to  any  person  of 
whom  it  caught  sight.  This  it  persisted  in  doing,  though 
beaten  back  with  a  small  branch  dozens  of  times,  and,  in- 
deed, cruelly  maltreated.  It  was  also  placed  under  the 
mother  at  night,  but  it  again  left  her  in  the  morning." 

The  instinct  of  sucking  is  ripe  in  all  mammals  at  birth, 
and  leads  to  that  habit  of  taking  the  breast  which,  in  the 
human  infant,  may  be  prolonged  by  daily  exercise  long 
beyond  its  usual  term  of  a  year  or  a  year  and  a  half.  But 
the  instinct  itself  is  transient,  in  the  sense  that  if,  for  any 
reason,  the  child  be  fed  by  spoon  during  the  first  few  days 
of  its  life  and  not  put  to  the  breast,  it  may  be  no  easy 
matter  after  that  to  make  it  suck  at  all.  So  of  calves.  If 
their  mother  die,  or  be  dry,  or  refuse  to  let  them  suck  for 
a  day  or  two,  so  that  they  are  fed  by  hand,  it  becomes  hard 
to  get  them  to  suck  at  all  when  a  new  nurse  is  provided. 
The  ease  with  which  sucking  creatures  are  weaned,  by 
simply  breaking  the  habit  and  giving  them  food  in  a  new 
way,  shows  that  the  instinct,  purely  as  such,  must  be  en- 
tirely extinct. 

Assuredly  the  simple  fact  that  instincts  are  transient, 
and  that  the  effect  of  later  ones  may  be  altered  by  the 
habits  which  earlier  ones  have  left  behind,  is  a  far  more 
philosophical  explanation  than  the  notion  of  an  instinctive 
constitution  vaguely  '  deranged '  or  '  thrown  out  of  gear.' 

I  have  observed  a  Scotch  terrier,  born  on  the  floor  of  a 
stable  in  December,  and  transferred  six  weeks  later  to  a 
carpeted  house,  make,  when  he  was  less  than  four  months 
old,  a  very  elaborate  pretence  of  burying  things,  such  as 
gloves,  etc.,  with  which  he  had  played  till'  he  was  tired. 
He  scratched  the  carpet  with  his  forefeet,  dropped  the 
object  from  his  mouth  upon  the  spot,  then  scratched  all 
about  it,  and  finally  went  away  and  let  it  lie.  Of  course, 
the  act  was  entirely  useless.  I  saw  him  perform  it  at  that 
age  some  four  or  five  times,  and  never  again  in  his  life. 


404  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  conditions  were  not  present  to  fix  a  habit  which  should 
last  when  the  prompting  instinct  died  away.  But  suppose 
meat  instead  of  a  glove,  earth  instead  of  a  carpet,  hunger- 
pangs  instead  of  a  fresh  supper  a  few  hours  later,  and  it  is 
easy  to  see  how  this  dog  might  have  got  into  a  habit  of 
burying  superfluous  food,  which  might  have  lasted  nil  his 
life.  Who  can  swear  that  the  strictly  instinctive  part  of 
the  food-burying  propensity  in  the  wild  Canidce  may  not 
be  as  short-lived  as  it  was  in  this  terrier  ? 

Leaving  lower  animals  aside,  and  turning  to  human  in- 
stincts, we  see  the  law  of  transiency  corroborated  on  the 
widest  scale  by  the  alternation  of  different  interests  and 
passions  as  human  life  goes  on.  With  the  child,  life  is  all 
play  and  fairy-tales  and  learning  the  external  properties  of 
'things';  with  the  youth,  it  is  bodily  exercises  of  a  more 
systematic  sort,  novels  of  the  real  world,  boon-fellowship 
and  song,  friendship  and  love,  nature,  travel  and  adven- 
ture, science  and  philosophy;  with  the  man,  ambition  and 
policy,  acquisitiveness,  responsibility  to  others,  and  the 
selfish  zest  of  the  battle  of  life.  If  a  boy  grows  up  alone 
at  the  age  of  games  and  sports,  and  learns  neither  to  play 
ball,  nor  row,  nor  sail,  nor  ride,  nor  skate,  nor  fish,  nor 
shoot,  probably  he  will  be  sedentary  to  the  end  of  his  days; 
and,  though  the  best  of  opportunities  be  afforded  him  for 
learning  these  things  later,  it  is  a  hundred  to  one  but  he 
will  pass  them  by  and  shrink  back  from  the  effort  of  tak- 
ing those  necessary  first  steps  the  prospect  of  which,  at  an 
earlier  age,  would  have  filled  him  with  eager  delight.  The 
sexual  passion  expires  after  a  protracted  reign;  but  it  is 
well  known  that  its  peculiar  manifestations  in  a  given  in- 
dividual depend  almost  entirely  on  the  habits  he  may  form 
during  the  early  period  of  its  activity.  Exposure  to  bad 
company  then  makes  him  a  loose  liver  all  his  days;  chas- 
tity kept  at  first  makes  the  same  easy  later  on.  In  all 
pedagogy  the  great  thing  is  to  strike  the  iron  while  hot, 
and  to  seize  the  wave  of  the  pupil's  interest  in  each  suc- 
cessive subject  before  its  ebb  has  come,  so  that  knowledge 


INSTINCT.  405 

may  be  got  and  a  habit  of  skill  acquired — a  headway  ot 
interest,  in  short,  secured,  on  which  afterward  the  individ- 
ual may  float.  There  is  a  happy  moment  for  fixing  skill 
in  drawing,  for  making  boys  collectors  in  natural  history, 
and  presently  dissectors  and  botanists;  then  for  initiating 
them  into  the  harmonies  of  mechanics  and  the  wonders  of 
physical  and  chemical  law.  Later,  introspective  psychol 
ogy  and  the  metaphysical  and  religious  mysteries  take  theii 
turn;  and,  last  of  all,  the  drama  of  human  affairs  and 
worldly  wisdom  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term.  In  each 
of  us  a  saturation-point  is  soon  reached  in  all  these  things ; 
the  impetus  of  our  purely  intellectual  zeal  expires,  and 
unless  the  topic  be  one  associated  with  some  urgent  per- 
sonal need  that  keeps  our  wits  constantly  whetted  about 
it,  we  settle  into  an  equilibrium,  and  live  on  what  we 
learned  when  our  interest  was  fresh  and  instinctive,  with- 
out adding  to  the  store.  Outside  of  their  own  business, 
the  ideas  gained  by  men  before  they  are  twenty-five  are 
practically  the  only  ideas  they  shall  have  in  their  lives. 
They  cannot  get  anything  new.  Disinterested  curiosity  is 
past,  the  mental  grooves  and  channels  set,  the  power  of 
assimilation  gone.  If  by  chance  we  ever  do  learn  anything 
about  some  entirely  new  topic,  we  are  afflicted  with  a 
strange  sense  of  insecurity,  and  we  fear  to  advance  a  reso- 
lute opinion.  But  with  things  learned  in  the  plastic  days 
of  instinctive  curiosity  we  never  lose  entirely  our  sense  of 
being  at  home.  There  remains  a  kinship,  a  sentiment  of 
intimate  acquaintance,  which,  even  when  we  know  we  have 
failed  to  keep  abreast  of  the  subject,  flatters  us  with  a 
sense  of  power  over  it,  and  makes  us  feel  not  altogether 
out  of  the  pale. 

Whatever  individual  exceptions  to  this  might  be  cited 
are  of  the  sort  that  '  prove  the  rule.' 

To  detect  the  moment  of  the  instinctive  readiness  for 
the  subject  is,  then,  the  first  duty  of  every  educator.  As 
for  the  pupils,  it  would  probably  lead  to  a  more  earnest 
temper  on  the  part  of  college  students  if  they  had  less 


10(5  PSYCHOLOGY. 

belief  in  their  unlimited  future  intellectual  potentialities, 
and  could  be  brought  to  realize  that  whatever  physics  and 
political  economy  and  philosophy  they  are  now  acquiring 
are,  for  better  or  worse,  the  physics  and  political  economy 
and  philosophy  that  will  have  to  serve  them  to  the  end. 

Enumeration  of  Instincts  in  Man. — Professor  Preyer,  in 
his  careful  little  work,  'Die  Seele  des  Kindes/  says  "in- 
stinctive acts  are  in  man  few  in  number,  and,  apart  from 
those  connected  with  the  sexual  passion,  difficult  to  recog- 
nize after  early  youth  is  past."  And  he  adds,  "so  much 
the  more  attention  should  we  pay  to  the  instinctive  move- 
ments of  new-born  babies,  sucklings,  and  small  children." 
That  instinctive  acts  should  be  easiest  recognized  in  child- 
hood would  be  a  very  natural  effect  of  our  principles  of 
transitoriness,  and  of  the  restrictive  influence  of  habits 
once  acquired;  but  they  are  far  indeed  from  being  'few  in 
number'  in  man.  Professor  Preyer  divides  the  movements 
of  infants  into  impulsive,  reflex,  and  instinctive..  By  im- 
pulsive movements  he  means  random  movements  of  limbs, 
body,  and  voice,  with  no  aim,  and  before  perception  is 
aroused.  Among  the  first  reflex  movements  are  crying  on 
contact  with  the  air,  sneezing,  snuffling,  snoring,  coughing, 
sighing,  sobbing,  gagging,  vomiting,  hiccuping,  starting, 
moving  the  limbs  when  touched,  and  sucking.  To  these 
may  now  be  added  hanging  by  the  hands  (see  Nineteen  tit 
Century,  Nov.  1891).  Later  on  come  biting,  clasping  ob- 
jects, and  carrying  them  to  the  mouth,  sifting  tip,  standing, 
creeping,  and  walking.  It  is  probable  that  the  centres  for 
executing  these  three  latter  acts  ripen  spontaneously,  just 
as  those  for  flight  have  been  proved  to  do  in  birds,  and 
that  the  appearance  of  learning  to  stand  and  walk,  by 
trial  and  failure,  is  due  to  the  exercise  beginning  in 
most  children  before  the  centres  are  ripe.  Children  vary 
enormously  in  the  rate  and  manner  in  which  they  learn 
to  walk.  With  the  first  impulses  to  imitation,  those 
to  significant  vocalization  are  born.  Emulation  rapidly 
ensues,   with  pugnacity   in    its   train.      Fear  of   definite 


INSTINOT.  407 

objects  comes  in  early,  sympathy  much  later,  though  on 
the  instinct  (or  emotion?— see  p.  373)  of  sympathy  so 
much  in  human  life  depends.  Shyness  and  sociability, 
play,  curiosity,  acquisitiveness,  all  begin  very  early  in  life. 
The  hunting  instinct,  modesty,  love,  the  parental  instinct, 
etc.,  come  later.  By  the  age  of  15  or  16  the  whole  array  of 
human  instincts  is  complete.  It  will  be  observed  that  no 
other  mammal,  not  even  the  monkey,  shoivs  so  large  a 
list.  In  a  perfectly-rounded  development  every  one  of 
these  instincts  would  start  a  habit  toward  certain  objects 
and  inhibit  a  habit  towards  certain  others.  Usually  this 
is  the  case;  but,  in  the  one-sided  development  of  civilized 
life,  it  happens  that  the  timely  age  goes  by  in  a  sort  of 
starvation  of  objects,  and  the  individual  then  grows  up 
with  gaps  in  his  psychic  constitution  which  future  experi- 
ences can  never  fill.  Compare  the  accomplished  gentleman 
with  the  poor  artisan  or  tradesman  of  a  city:  during  the 
adolescence  of  the  former,  objects  appropriate  to  his  grow- 
ing interests,  bodily  and  mental,  were  offered  as  fast  as  the 
interests  awoke,  and,  as  a  consequence,  he  is  armed  and 
equipped  at  every  angle  to  meet  the  world.  Sport  came 
to  the  rescue  and  completed  his  education  where  real 
things  were  lacking.  He  has  tasted  of  the  essence  of 
every  side  of  human  life,  being  sailor,  hunter,  athlete, 
scholar,  fighter,  talker,  dandy,  man  of  affairs,  etc.,  all  in 
one.  Over  the  city  poor  boy's  youth  no  such  golden 
opportunities  were  hung,  and  in  his  manhood  no  desires 
for  most  of  them  exist.  Fortunate  it  is  for  him  if  gaps 
are  the  only  anomalies  his  instinctive  life  presents;  per- 
versions are  too  often  the  fruit  of  his  unnatural  bringing- 
up. 

Description  of  Fear. — In  order  to  treat  at  least  one  in- 
stinct at  greater  length,  I  will  take  the  instance  of  fear. 

Fear  is  a  reaction  aroused  by  the  same  objects  that 
arouse  ferocity.  The  antagonism  of  the  two  is  an  interest- 
ing study  in  instinctive  dynamics.  We  both  fear,  and 
wish  to  kill,  anything  that  may  kill  us;  and  the  question 


4  OS  PSYCHOLOGY. 

which  of  the  two  impulses  we  sh;ill  follow  is  usually  de- 
cided by  some  one  of  those  collateral  circumstances  of 
the  particular  case,  to  be  moved  by  which  is  the  mark  of 
superior  mental  natures.  Of  course  this  introduces  un- 
certainty into  the  reaction;  but  it  is  an  uncertainty  found 
in  the  higher  brutes  as  well  as  in  men,  and  ought  not  to 
be  taken  as  proof  that  we  are  less  instinctive  than  they. 
Fear  has  bodily  expressions  of  an  extremely  energetic 
kind,  and  stands,  beside  lust  and  anger,  as  one  of  the 
three  most  exciting  emotions  of  which  our  nature  is  sus- 
ceptible. The  progress  from  brute  to  man  is  characterized 
by  nothing  so  much  as  by  the  decrease  in  frequency  of 
proper  occasions  for  fear.  In  civilized  life,  in  particular, 
it  has  at  last  become  possible  for  large  numbers  of  people 
to  pass  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave  without  ever  having 
had  a  pang  of  genuine  fear.  Many  of  us  need  an  attack 
of  mental  disease  to  teach  us  the  meaning  of  the  word. 
Hence  the  possibility  of  so  much  blindly  optimistic  phi- 
losophy and  religion.  The  atrocities  of  life  become  '  like 
a  tale  of  little  meaning  though  the  words  are  strong';  we 
doubt  if  anything  like  us  ever  really  was  within  the  tiger's 
jaws,  and  conclude  that  the  horrors  we  hear  of  are  but  a 
sort  of  painted  tapestry  for  the  chambers  in  which  we 
lie  so  comfortably  at  peace  with  ourselves  and  with  the 
world. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  fear  is  a  genuine  instinct,  and  one  of 
the  earliest  shown  by  the  human  child.  Noises  seem  es- 
pecially to  call  it  forth.  Most  noises  from  the  outer  world, 
to  a  child  bred  in  the  house,  have  no  exact  significance. 
They  are  simply  startling.  To  quote  a  good  observer,  M. 
Perez : 

"  Children  between  three  and  ten  months  are  less  often 
alarmed  by  visual  than  by  auditory  impressions.  In  cats, 
from  the  fifteenth  day,  the  contrary  is  the  case.  A  child, 
three  and  a  half  months  old,  in  the  midst  of  the  turmoil 
of  a  conflagration,  in  presence  of  the  devouring  flames  and 
ruined  walls,  showed  neither  astonishment  nor  fear,  but 


INSTINCT.  409 

smiled  at  the  woman  who  was  taking  care  of  him,  while 
his  parents  were  busy.  The  noise,  however,  of  the  trumpet 
of  the  firemen,  who  were  approaching,  and  that  of  the 
wheels  of  the  engine,  made  him  start  and  cry.  At  this 
age  I  have  never  yet  seen  an  infant  startled  at  a  flash  of 
lightning,  even  when  intense;  but  I  have  seen  many  of 
them  alarmed  at  the  voice  of  the  thunder.  .  .  .  Thus  fear 
comes  rather  by  the  ears  than  by  the  eyes,  to  the  child 
without  experience."  * 

The  effect  of  noise  in  heightening  any  terror  we  may 
feel  in  adult  years  is  very  marked.  The  liowling  of  the 
storm,  whether  on  sea  or  land,  is  a  principal  cause  of  our 
anxiety  when  exposed  to  it.  The  writer  has  been  in- 
terested hi  noticing  in  his  own  person,  while  lying  in  bed, 
and  kept  awake  by  the  wind  outside,  how  invariably  each 
loud  gust  of  it  arrested  momentarily  his  heart.  A  dog 
attacking  us  is  much  more  dreadful  by  reason  of  the 
noises  he  makes. 

Strange  men,  and  strange  animals,  either  large  or  small, 
excite  fear,  but  especially  men  or  animals  advancing  to- 
ward us  in  a  threatening  way.  This  is  entirely  instinctive 
and  antecedent  to  experience.  Some  children  will  cry 
with  terror  at  their  very  first  sight  of  a  cat  or  dog,  and  it 
will  often  be  impossible  for  weeks  to  make  them  touch  it. 
Others  will  wish  to  fondle  it  almost  immediately.  Certain 
kinds  of  '  vermin/  especially  spiders  and  snakes,  seem  to 
excite  a  fear  unusually  difficult  to  overcome.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  say  how  much  of  this  difference  is  instinctive  and 
how  much  the  result  of  stories  heard  about  these  creatures. 
That  the  fear  of  'vermin'  ripens  gradually  seemed  to  me 
to  be  proved  in  a  child  of  my  own  to  whom  I  gave  a  live 
frog  once,  at  the  age  of  six  to  eight  months,  and  again 
when  he  was  a  year  and  a  half  old.  The  first  time,  he 
seized  it  promptly,  and  holding  it  in  spite  of  its  strug- 
gling, at  last  got  its  head  into  his  mouth.     He  then  let 

*  Psychologie  de  TEnfant.  p.  72 


410  PSYCHOLOGY. 

it  crawl  up  his  breast,  and  get  upon  his  face,  without 
showing  alarm.  Hut  the  second  time,  although  lie  had 
seen  no  frog  and  heard  no  story  about  a  frog  between- 
whiles,  it  was  almost  impossible  to  induce  him  to  touch 
it.  Another  child,  a  year  old,  eagerly  took  some  very 
large  spiders  into  his  hand.  At  present  he  is  afraid,  but 
has  been  exposed  meanwhile  to  the  teachings  of  the 
nursery.  One  of  my  children  from  her  birth  upwards 
saw  daily  the  pet  pug-dog  of  the  house,  and  never  be- 
trayed the  slightest  fear  until  she  was  (if  I  recollect 
rightly)  about  eight  months  old.  Then  the  instinct  sud- 
denly seemed  to  develop,  and  with  such  intensity  that 
familiarity  had  no  mitigating  effect.  She  screamed  when- 
ever the  dog  entered  the  room,  and  for  many  months  re- 
mained afraid  to  touch  him.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
no  change  in  the  pug's  unfailingly  friendly  conduct  had 
anything  to  do  with  this  change  of  feeling  in  the  child. 
Two  of  my  children  were  afraid,  when  babies,  of  fur: 
Richet  reports  a  similar  observation. 

Preyer  tells  of  a  young  child  screaming  with  fear  on 
being  carried  near  to  the  sea.  The  great  source  of  terror 
to  infancy  is  solitude.  The  teleology  of  this  is  obvious, 
as  is  also  that  of  the  infant's  expression  of  dismay — the 
never-failing  cry — on  waking  up  and  finding  himself 
alone. 

Black  tilings,  and  especially  dark  places,  holes,  caverns, 
etc.,  arouse  a  peculiarly  gruesome  fear.  This  fear,  as  well 
as  that  of  solitude,  of  being  'lost,'  are  explained  after  a 
fashion  by  ancestral  experience.     Says  Schneider: 

:'It  is  a  fact  that  men,  especially  in  childhood,  fear  to 
go  into  a  dark  cavern  or  a  gloomy  wood.  This  feeling  of 
fear  arises,  to  be  sure,  partly  from  the  fact  that  we  easily 
suspect  that  dangerous  beasts  may  lurk  in  these  localities 
— a  suspicion  due  to  stories  we  have  heard  and  read.  But, 
nil  i  he  other  hand,  it  is  quite  sure  that  this  fear  at  a 
certain  perception  is  also  directly  inherited.  Children 
who  have  been  carefully  guarded   from  all  ghost-stories 


INSTINCT.  411 

are  nevertheless  terrified  and  cry  if  led  into  a  dark  place, 
especially  if  sounds  are  made  there.  Even  an  adult  can 
easily  observe  that  an  uncomfortable  timidity  steals  over 
him  in  a  lonely  wood  at  night,  although  he  may  have  the 
fixed  conviction  that  not  the  slightest  danger  is  near. 

"  This  feeling  of  fear  occurs  in  many  men  even  in  their 
own  house  after  dark,  although  it  is  much  stronger  in  a 
dark  cavern  or  forest.  The  fact  of  such  instinctive  fear 
is  easily  explicable  when  we  consider  that  our  savage  an- 
cestors through  innumerable  generations  were  accustomed 
to  meet  with  dangerous  beasts  in  caverns,  especially  bears, 
and  were  for  the  most  part  attacked  by  such  beasts  during 
the  night  and  in  the  woods,  and  that  thus  an  inseparable 
association  between  the  perceptions  of  darkness,  caverns, 
woods,  and  fear  took  place,  and  was  inherited."  * 

High  places  cause  fear  of  a  peculiarly  sickening  sort, 
though  here,  again,  individuals  differ  enormously.  The 
utterly  blind  instinctive  character  of  the  motor  impulses 
here  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  they  are  almost  always 
entirely  unreasonable,  but  that  reason  is  powerless  to 
suppress  them.  That  they  are  a  mere  incidental  pecu- 
liarity of  the  nervous  system,  like  liability  to  sea-sickness, 
or  love  of  music,  with  no  teleological  significance,  seems 
more  than  probable.  The  fear  in  question  varies  so  much 
from  one  person  to  another,  and  its  detrimental  effects 
are  so  much  more  obvious  than  its  uses,  that  it  is  hard  to 
see  how  it  could  be  a  selected  instinct.  Man  is  anatomi- 
cally one  of  the  best  fitted  of  animals  for  climbing  about 
high  places.  The  best  psychical  complement  to  this 
equipment  would  seem  to  be  a  '  level  head '  when  there, 
not  a  dread  of  going  there  at  all.  In  fact,  the  teleology' 
of  fear,  beyond  a  certain  point,  is  more  than  dubious. 
A  certain  amount  of  timidity  obviously  adapts  us  to  the 
world  we  live  in,  but  the  fear-paroxysm  is  surely  altogether 
harmful  to  him  who  is  its  prey. 

*  Der  Menscbliche  Wille,  p.  224. 


412  PSYCHOLOGY 

Fear  of  the  supernatural  is  one  variety  of  fear.  It  is 
difficult  to  assign  any  normal  object  for  this  fear,  unless  it 
were  a  genuine  ghost.  But,  in  spite  of  psychical-research 
societies,  science  has  not  yet  adopted  ghosts;  so  we  can 
only  say  that  certain  ideas  of  supernatural  agency,  associ- 
ated with  real  circumstances,  produce  a  peculiar  kind  of 
horror.  This  horror  is  probably  explicable  as  the  result  of 
a  combination  of  simpler  horrors.  To  bring  the  ghostly 
terror  to  its  maximum,  many  usual  elements  of  the  dread- 
ful must  combine,  such  as  loneliness,  darkness,  inexplicable 
sounds,  especially  of  a  dismal  character,  moving  figures 
half  discerned  (or,  if  discerned,  of  dreadful  aspect),  and  a 
vertiginous  baffling  of  the  expectation.  This  last  element, 
which  is  intellectual,  is  very  important.  It  produces  a 
strange  emotional  'curdle'  in  our  blood  to  see  a  process 
with  which  we  are  familiar  deliberately  taking  an  un- 
wonted course.  Anyone's  heart  would  stop  beating  if  he 
perceived  his  chair  sliding  unassisted  across  the  floor. 
The  lower  animals  appear  to  be  sensitive  to  the  mys- 
teriously exceptional  as  well  as  ourselves.  My  friend 
Professor  W.  K.  Brooks  told  me  of  his  large  and  noble 
dog  being  frightened  into  a  sort  of  epileptic  fit  by  a  bone 
being  drawn  across  the  floor  by  a  thread  which  the  dog  did 
not  see.  Darwin  and  Romanes  have  given  similar  experi- 
ences. The  idea  of  the  supernatural  involves  that  the 
usual  should  be  set  at  naught.  In  the  witch  and  hobgob- 
lin supernatural,  other  elements  still  of  fear  are  brought 
in — caverns,  slime  and  ooze,  vermin,  corjoses,  and  the  like. 
A  human  corpse  seems  normally  to  produce  an  instinctive 
dread,  which  is  no  doubt  somewhat  due  to  its  mysterious- 
ness,  and  which  familiarity  rapidly  dispels.  But,  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  cadaveric,  reptilian,  and  underground 
horrors  play  so  specific  and  constant  a  part  in  many  night- 
mares and  forms  of  delirium,  it  seems  not  altogether  un- 
wise to  ask  whether  these  forms  of  dreadful  circumstance 
may  not  at  a  former  period  have  been  more  normal  objects 
of  the  environment  than  now.     The  ordinary  cock-sure 


INSTINCT.  413 

evolutionist  ought  to  have  no  difficulty  in  explaining  these 
terrors,  and  the  scenery  that  provokes  them,  as  relapses 
into  the  consciousness  of  the  cave-men,  a  consciousness 
usually  overlaid  in  us  by  experiences  of  more  recent  date. 

There  are  certain  other  pathological  fears,  and  certain 
peculiarities  in  the  expression  of  ordinary  fear,  which 
might  receive  an  explanatory  light  from  ancestral  condi- 
tions, even  infra-human  ones.  In  ordinary  fear,  one  may 
either  run,  or  remain  semi-paralyzed.  The  latter  condi- 
tion reminds  us  of  the  so-called  death-shamming  instinct 
shown  by  many  animals.  Dr.  Lindsay,  in  his  work  '  Mind 
in  Animals,'  says  this  must  require  great  self-command  in 
those  that  practise  it.  But  it  is  really  no  feigning  of 
death  at  all,  and  requires  no  self-command.  It  is  simply 
a  terror-paralysis  which  has  been  so  useful  as  to  become 
hereditary.  The  beast  of  prey  does  not  think  the  motion- 
less bird,  insect,  or  crustacean  dead.  He  simply  fails  to 
notice  them  at  all;  because  his  senses,  like  ours,  are  much 
more  strongly  excited  by  a  moving  object  than  by  a  still 
one.  It  is  the  same  instinct  which  leads  a  boy  playing  '  I 
spy '  to  hold  his  very  breath  when  the  seeker  is  near,  and 
which  makes  the  beast  of  prey  himself  in  many  cases  mo- 
tionlessly  lie  in  wait  for  his  victim  or  silently  '  stalk '  it,  by 
stealthy  advances  alternated  with  periods  of  immobility. 
It  is  the  opposite  of  the  instinct  which  makes  us  jump  up 
and  down  and  move  our  arms  when  we  wish  to  attract  the 
notice  of  someone  passing  far  away,  and  makes  the  ship- 
wrecked sailor  upon  the  raft  where  he  is  floating  fran- 
tically wave  a  cloth  when  a  distant  sail  appears.  Now, 
may  not  the  statue-like,  crouching  immobility  of  some 
melancholiacs,  insane  with  general  anxiety  and  fear  of 
everything,  be  in  some  way  connected  with  this  old  in- 
stinct ?  They  can  give  no  reason  for  their  fear  to  move; 
but  immobility  makes  them  feel  safer  and  more  comfort- 
able. Is  not  this  the  mental  state  of  the  'feigning' 
animal  ? 

Again,  take  the  strange  symptom  which  has  been  de- 


414  PSYCHO  LOO Y. 

scribed  of  late  years  by  the  rather  absurd  name  of  agora- 
phobia.    The  patient  is  seized  with  palpitation  and  terror 

at  the  sight  of  any  open  place  or  broad  street  which  he 
lias  to  cross  alone.  He  trembles,  his  knees  bend,  he  may 
even  faint  at  the  idea.  "Where  he  has  sufficient  self-com- 
mand he  sometimes  accomplishes  the  object  by  keeping 
safe  under  the  lee  of  a  vehicle  going  across,  or  joining  him- 
self to  a  knot  of  other  people.  But  usually  he  slinks  round 
the  sides  of  the  square,  hugging  the  houses  as  closely  as  he 
can.  This  emotion  has  no  utility  in  a  civilized  man,  but 
when  we  notice  the  chronic  agoraphobia  of  our  domestic 
cats,  and  see  the  tenacious  way  in  which  many  wild 
animals,  especially  rodents,  cling  to  cover,  and  only  ven- 
ture on  a  dash  across  the  open  as  a  desperate  measure — 
even  then  making  for  every  stone  or  bunch  of  weeds  which 
may  give  a  momentary  shelter — when  we  see  this  we  art; 
strongly  tempted  to  ask  whether  such  an  odd  kind  of  fear 
in  us  be  not  due  to  the  accidental  resurrection,  through 
disease,  of  a  sort  of  instinct  which  may  in  some  of  our 
remote  ancestors  have  had  a  permanent  and  on  the  whole 
a  useful  part  to  play  ? 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 


WILL. 


Voluntary  Acts. — Desire,  wish,  will,  are  states  of  mind 
which  everyone  knows,  and  which  no  definition  can  make 
plainer.  We  desire  to  feel,  to  have,  to  do,  all  sorts  of 
things  which  at  the  moment  are  not  felt,  had,  or  done.  If 
with  the  desire  there  goes  a  sense  that  attainment  is  not 
possible,  we  simply  wish;  but  if  we  believe  that  the  end  is 
in  our  power,  we  will  that  the  desired  feeling,  having,  or 
doing  shall  be  real ;  and  real  it  presently  becomes,  either 
immediately  upon  the  willing  or  after  certain  preliminaries 
have  been  fulfilled. 

The  only  ends  which  follow  immediately  upon  our  will- 
ing seem  to  be  movements  of  our  own  bodies.  Whatever 
feelings  and  havings  we  may  will  to  get  come  in  as  results 
of  preliminary  movements  which  we  make  for  the  purpose. 
This  fact  is  too  familiar  to  need  illustration ;  so  that  we 
may  start  with  the  proposition  that  the  only  direct  out- 
ward effects  of  our  will  are  bodily  movements.  The 
mechanism  of  production  of  these  voluntary  movements  is 
what  befalls  us  to  study  now. 

They  are  secondary  performances.  The  movements  we 
have  studied  hitherto  have  been  automatic  and  reflex,  and 
(on  the  first  occasion  of  their  performance,  at  any  rate) 
unforeseen  by  the  agent.  The  movements  to  the  study  of 
which  we  now  address  ourselves,  being  desired  and  in- 
tended beforehand,  are  of  course  done  with  full  prevision 
of  what  they  are  to  be.  It  follows  from  this  that  voluntary 
movements  must  be  secondary,  not  primary,  functions  of 
our  organism.  This  is  the  first  point  to  understand  in  the 
psychology  of  Volition.     Reflex,  instinctive,  and  emotion;;) 


116  PSYCHOLOGY. 

movements  are  all  primary  performances.  The  nerve- 
centres  are  so  organized  that  certain  stimuli  pull  the 
trigger  of  certain  explosive  parts;  and  a  creature  going 
through  one  of  these  explosions  for  the  first  time  under- 
goes an  entirely  novel  experience.  The  other  day  I  was 
standing  at  a  railroad  station  with  a  little  child,  when  an 
3x press-train  went  thundering  by.  The  child,  who  was 
near  the  edge  of  the  platform,  started,  winked,  had  his 
breath ;ng  convulsed,  turned  pale,  burst  out  crying,  and 
ran  frantically  towards  me  and  hid  his  face.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  this  youngster  was  almost  as  much  astonished 
by  his  own  behavior  as  he  was  by  the  train,  and  more  than 
I  was,  who  stood  by.  Of  course  if  such  a  reaction  has 
many  times  occurred  we  learn  what  to  expect  of  ourselves, 
and  can  then  foresee  our  conduct,  even  though  it  remain 
as  involuntary  and  uncontrollable  as  it  was  before.  But 
if,  in  voluntary  action  properly  so  called,  the  act  must  be 
foreseen,  it  follows  that  no  creature  not  endowed  with  pro- 
phetic power  can  perform  an  act  voluntarily  for  the  first 
time.  Well,  we  are  no  more  endowed  with  prophetic  vision 
of  what  movements  lie  in  our  power  than  we  are  endowed 
with  prophetic  vision  of  what  sensations  we  are  capable  of 
receiving.  As  we  must  wait  for  the  sensations  to  be  given 
us,  so  we  must  wait  for  the  movements  to  be  performed 
involuntarily,  before  we  can  frame  ideas  of  what  either  of 
these  things  are.  We  learn  all  our  possibilities  by  the  way 
of  experience.  When  a  particular  movement,  having  once 
occurred  in  a  random,  reflex,  or  involuntary  way,  has  left 
an  image  of  itself  in  the  memory,  then  the  movement  can 
be  desired  again,  and  deliberately  willed.  But  it  is  impos- 
sible to  see  how  it  could  be  willed  before. 

.1  supply  of  ideas  of  the  various  movements  that  are  pos- 
gible,  lift  in  the  memory  by  experiences  of  their  involuntary 
performance,  is  thus  the  first  prerequisite  of  the  voluntary 
life. 

Two  Kinds  of  Ideas  of  Movement. — Now  these  ideas  may 
be  either  resident  or  renwte.     That  is,  they  may  be  of  the 


WILL.  417 

movement  as  h  ^eels,  when  taking  place,  in  the  moving 
parts ;  or  they  may  be  of  the  movement  as  it  feels  in  some 
other  part  of  the  body  which  it  affects  (strokes,  presses, 
scratches,  etc.),  or  as  it  sounds,  or  as  it  looks.  The  resi- 
dent sensations  in  the  parts  that  move  have  been  called 
kinaistiietic  feelings,  the  memories  of  them  are  kinesthetic 
ideasf^t  is  by  these  kinesthetic  sensations  that  we  are 
made  conscious  of  passive  movements — movements  com- 
municated to  our  limbs  by  others.  If  you  lie  with  closed 
eyes,  and  another  person  noiselessly  places  your  arm  or  leg 
in  any  arbitrarily  chosen  attitude,  you  receive  a  feeling  of 
what  attitude  it  is,  and  can  reproduce  it  yourself  in  the 
arm  or  leg  of  the  opposite  side.  Similarly  a  man  waked 
suddenly  from  sleep  in  the  dark  is  aware  of  how  he  finds 
himself  lying.  At  least  this  is  what  happens  in  normal 
cases.  But  when  the  feelings  of  passive  movement  as  well 
as  all  the  other  feelings  of  a  limb  are  lost,  we  get  such  re- 
sults as  are  given  in  the  following  account  by  Prof.  A. 
Striimpell  of  his  wonderful  anaesthetic  boy,  whose  only 
sources  of  feeling  were  the  right  eye  and  the  left  ear :  * 

"  Passive  movements  could  be  imprinted  on  all  the 
extremities  to  the  greatest  extent,  without  attracting  the 
patient's  notice.  Only  in  violent  forced  hyperextension 
of  the  joints,  especially  of  the  knees,  there  arose  a  dull 
vague  feeling  of  strain,  but  this  was  seldom  precisely 
localized.  We  have  often,  after  bandaging  the  eyes  of 
the  patient,  carried  him  about  the  room,  laid  him  on  a 
table,  given  to  his  arms  and  legs  the  most  fantastic  and 
apparently  the  most  inconvenient  attitudes  without  his 
having  a  suspicion  of  it.  The  expression  of  astonishment 
in  his  face,  when  all  at  once  the  removal  of  the  handker- 
chief revealed  his  situation,  is  indescribable  in  words. 
Only  when  his  head  was  made  to  hang  away  down  he 
immediately  spoke  of  dizziness,  but  could  not  assign  its 
ground.      Later  he  sometimes  inferred  from  the  sounds 

*  Deutsches  Arcliiv  f.  Klin.  Medicin,  xxii.  321. 


118  PSYCHOLOGY. 

connected  with  the  manipulation  that  something  special 
was   being  done  with  him.  ...   Ee   had  no  feelings  of 

muscular  fatigue.  If,  with  his  eyes  shut,  we  told  him  to 
raise  his  arm  and  to  keep  it  up,  he  did  so  without  trouble. 
After  one  or  two  minutes,  however,  the  arm  began  to 
tremble  and  sink  without  bis  being  aware  of  it.  He  as- 
serted still  his  ability  to  keep  it  up.  .  .  .  Passively  hold- 
ing still  his  fingers  did  not  affect  him.  He  thought  con- 
stantly that  he  opened  and  shut  his  hand,  whereas  it  was 
really  fixed." 
U--  ^No  third  kind  of  idea  is  called  for.  We  need,  then, 
when  we  perform  a  movement,  either  a  kinesthetic  or  a 
remote  idea  of  which  special  movement  it  is  to  be.  In 
addition  to  this  it  has  often  been  supposed  that  we  need 
an  idea  of  the  amount  of  innervation  required  for  the 
muscular  contraction.  The  discharge  from  the  motor 
centre  into  the  motor  nerve  is  supposed  to  give  a  sensation 
sin  generis,  opposed  to  all  our  other  sensations.  These  ac- 
company incoming  currents,  whilst  that,' it  is  said,  accom- 
panies an  outgoing  current,  and  no  movement  is  supposed 
to  be  totally  defined  in  our  mind,  unless  an  anticipation 
of  this  feeling  enter  into  our  idea.  The  movement's 
degree  of  strength,  and  the  effort  required  to  perform  it, 
are  supposed  to  be  specially  revealed  by  the  feeling  of  in- 
nervation. Many  authors  deny  that  this  feeling  exists,  and 
the  proofs  given  of  its  existence  are  certainly  insufficient. 
The  various  degrees  of  '  effort '  actually  felt  in  making 
the  same  movement  against  different  resistances  are  all 
accounted  for  by  the  incoming  feelings  from  our  chest, 
jaws,  abdomen,  and  other  parts  sympathetically  contracted 
whenever  the  effort  is  great.  There  is  no  need  of  a  con- 
sciousness of  the  amount  of  outgoing  current  required. 
If  anything  be  obvious  to  introspection,  it  is  that  the 
degree  of  strength  put  forth  is  completely  revealed  to  us 
by  incoming  feelings  from  the  muscles  themselves  and 
their  insertions,  from  the  vicinity  of  the  joints,  and  from 
the  general  fixation  of  the  larynx,  chest,  face,  and  body. 


WILL.  419 

When  a  certain. degree  of  energy  of  contraction  rather  than 
another  is  thought  of  by  us,  this  complex  aggregate  of 
afferent  feelings,  forming  the  material  of  our  thought,  ren- 
ders absolutely  precise  and  distinctive  our  mental  image 
of  the  exact  strength  of  movement  to  be  made,  and  the 
exact  amount  of  resistance  to  be  overcome. 

Let  the  reader  try  to  direct  his  will  towards  a  particular 
movement,  and  then  notice  what  constituted  the  direction 
of  the  will.  Was  it  anything  over  and  above  the  notion 
of  the  different  feelings  to  which  the  movement  when 
effected  would  give  rise  ?  If  we  abstract  from  these  feel- 
ings, will  any  sign,  principle,  or  means  of  orientation  be 
left  by  which  the  will  may  innervate  the  proper  muscles 
with  the  right  intensity,  and  not  go  astray  into  the  wrong 
ones  ?  Strip  off  these  images  anticipative  of  the  results 
of  the  motion,  and  so  far  from  leaving  us  with  a  complete 
assortment  of  directions  into  which  our  will  may  launch 
itself,  you  leave  our  consciousness  in  an  absolute  and  total 
vacuum.  If  I  will  to  write  Peter  rather  than  Paul,  it  is 
the  thought  of  certain  digital  sensations,  of  certain  alpha- 
betic sounds,  of  certain  appearances  on  the  paper,  and  of 
no  others,  which  immediately  precedes  the  motion  of  my 
pen.  If  I  will  to  utter  the  word  Paul  rather  than  Pete?', 
it  is  the  thought  of  my  voice  falling  on  my  ear,  and  of 
certain  muscular  feelings  in  my  tongue,  lips,  and  larynx, 
which  guide  the  utterance.  All  these  are  incoming  feel- 
ings, and  between  the  thought  of  them,  by  which  the  act 
is  mentally  specified  with  all  possible  completeness,  and 
the  act  itself,  there  is  no  room  for  any  third  order  of 
mental  phenomenon. 

There  is  indeed  the  fiat,  the  element  of  consent,  or  re- 
solve that  the  act  shall  ensue.  This,  doubtless,  to  the 
reader's  mind,  as  to  my  own,  constitutes  the  essence  of  the 
voluntariness  of  the  act.  This  fiat  will  be  treated  of  in 
detail  farther  on.  It  may  be  entirely  neglected  here,  for  it 
is  a  constant  coefficient,  affecting  all  voluntary  actions 
alike,  and  incapable  of  serving  to  distinguish  them.     No 


420  P8YCH0L0G  Y. 

one  will  protend  that  its  quality  varies  according  as  the 
right  arm,  for  example,  or  the  left  is  used. 

An  anticipatory  image,  then,  of  the  sensorial  conse- 
quences of  a  movement,  plus  {on  certain  occasions)  the  fiat 
that  these  consequences  shall  become  actual,  is  the  only 
psychic  state  which  introspection  lets  us  discern  as  the 
forerunner  of  our  voluntary  acts.  There  is  no  coercive 
evidence  of  any  feeling  attached  to  the  efferent  dis- 
charge. 

The  entire  content  and  material  of  our  consciousness — 
consciousness  of  movement,  as  of  all  things  else — seems 
thus  to  be  of  peripheral  origin,  and  to  come  to  us  in  the 
first  instance  through  the  peripheral  nerves. 

The  Motor-cue. — Let  us  call  the  last  idea  which  in  the 
mind  precedes  the  motor  discharge  the  'motor-cue.'  Now 
do  'resident'  images  form  the  only  motor-cue,  or  will  're- 
mote '  ones  equally  suffice  ? 

There  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  cue  may  be 
an  image  either  of  the  resident  or  of  the  remote  kind.  Al- 
though, at  the  outset  of  our  learning  a  movement,  it  would 
seem  that  the  resident  feelings  must  come  strongly  before 
consciousness,  later  this  need  not  be  the  case.  The  rule, 
in  fact,  would  seem  to  be  that  they  tend  to  lapse  more  and 
more  from  consciousness,  and  that  the  more  practised  we 
become  in  a  movement,  the  more  'remote'  do  the  ideas 
become  which  form  its  mental  cue.  What  we  are  inter- 
ested in  is  what  sticks  in  our  consciousness;  everything 
else  we  get  rid  of  as  quickly  as  we  can.  Our  resident  feel- 
ings of  movement  have  no  substantive  interest  for  us  at 
all,  as  a  rule.  What  interest  us  are  the  ends  which  the 
movement  is  to  attain.  Such  an  end  is  generally  a  remote 
sensation,  an  impression  which  the  movement  produces  on 
the  eye  or  ear,  or  sometimes  on  the  skin,  nose,  or  palate. 
Now  let  the  idea  of  such  an  end  associate  itself  definitely 
with  the  right  discharge,  and  the  thought  of  the  innerva- 
tion's resident  effects  will  become  as  great  an  encumbrance 
as  we  have  already  concluded  that  the  feeling  of  the  in- 


WILL.  421 

nervation  itself  is.     The  mind  does  not  need  it;  the  end 
alone  is  enough. 

The  idea  of  the  end,  then,  tends  more  and  more  to 
make  itself  all-sufficient.  Or,  at  any  rate,  if  the  kines- 
thetic ideas  are  called  up  at  all,  they  are  so  swamped  in 
the  vivid  kinesthetic  feelings  by  which  they  are  immedi- 
ately overtaken  that  we  have  no  time  to  be  aware  of  their 
separate  existence.  As  I  write,  I  have  no  anticipation,  as 
a  thing  distinct  from  my  sensation,  of  either  the  look  or 
the  digital  feel  of  the  letters  which  flow  from  my  pen. 
The  words  chime  on  my  mental  ear,  as  it  were,  before  I 
write  them,  but  not  on  my  mental  eye  or  hand.  This 
comes  from  the  rajndity  with  which  the  movements  follow 
on  their  mental  cue.  An  end  consented  to  as  soon  as  con- 
ceived innervates  directly  the  centre  of  the  first  movement 
of  the  chain  which  leads  to  its  accomplishment,  and  then 
the  whole  chain  rattles  off  <7Mas{-reflexly,  as  was  described 
on  pp.  115-6. 

The  reader  will  certainly  recognize  this  to  be  true  in  all 
fluent  and  unhesitating  voluntary  acts.  The  only  special 
fiat  there  is  at  the  outset  of  the  performance.  A  man  says 
to  himself,  "  I  must  change  my  clothes,"  and  involuntarily 
he  has  taken  off  his  coat,  and  his  fingers  are  at  work  in 
their  accustomed  manner  on  his  waistcoat-buttons,  etc. ; 
or  we  say,  "  I  must  go  downstairs,"  and  ere  we  know  it  we 
have  risen,  walked,  and  turned  the  handle  of  the  door; — 
all  through  the  idea  of  an  end  coupled  with  a  series  of 
guiding  sensations  which  successively  arise.  It  would 
seem  indeed  that  we  fail  of  accuracy  and  certainty  in  our 
attainment  of  the  end  whenever  we  are  preoccupied  with 
the  way  in  which  the  movement  will  feel.  We  walk  a  beam 
the  better  the  less  we  think  of  the  position  of  our  feet  upon 
it.  We  pitch  or  catch,  we  shoot  or  chop  the  better  the 
less  tactile  and  muscular  (the  less  resident),  and  the  more 
exclusively  optical  (the  more  remote),  our  consciousness 
is.  Keep  your  eye  on  the  place  aimed  at,  and  your  hand 
will  fetch  it;  think  of  your  hand,  and  you  will  very  likely 


4'22  PSYCHOLOGY. 

miss  your  aim.  Dr.  Southard  found  that  he  could  touch 
a  spol  with  a  pencil-point  more  accurately  with  a  visual 
than  with  a  tactile  mental  cue.  In  the  former  case  he 
looked  at  a  small  ohject  and  closed  his  eyes  before  try- 
in--  to  touch  it.  In  the  latter  case  he  placed  it  with  closed 
eyes,  and  then  after  removing  his  hand  tried  to  touch  it 
again.  The  average  error  with  touch  (when  the  results 
were  most  favorable)  was  17.13  mm.  With  sight  it  was 
only  L2.37  mm. — All  these  are  plain  results  of  introspection 
and  observation.  By  what  neural  machinery  they  are 
made  possible  we  do  not  know. 

In  Chapter  XIX  we  saw  how  enormously  individuals 
differ  in  respect  to  their  mental  imagery.  In  the  type  of 
imagination  called  tactile  by  the  French  authors,  it  is 
probable  that  the  kinesthetic  ideas  are  more  prominent, 
than  in  my  account.  We  must  not  expect  too  great,  a 
uniformity  in  individual  accounts,  nor  wrangle  overmuch 
as  to  which  one  'truly7  represents  the  process. 

I  trust  that  I  have  now  made  clear  what  that  '  idea  of 
a  movement '  is  which  must  precede  it  in  order  that  it  be 
voluntary.  It  is  not  the  thought  of  the  innervation  which 
the  movement  requires.  It  is  the  anticipation  of  the 
movement's  sensible  effects,  resident  or  remote,  and  some- 
times very  remote  indeed.  Such  anticipations,  to  say  the 
least,  determine  what  our  movements  shall  be.  I  have 
spoken  all  along  as  if  they  also  might  determine  that  they 
shall  he.  This,  no  doubt,  has  disconcerted  many  readers, 
for  it  certainly  seems  as  if  a  special  fiat,  or  consent  to  the 
movement,  were  required  in  addition  to  the  mere  concep- 
tion of  it,  in  many  cases  of  volition;  and  this  fiat  I  have 
altogether  left  out  of  my  account.  This  leads  us  to  the 
next  point  in  our  discussion. 

Ideo-motor  Action. — The  question  is  this:  Is  the  bare 
idea  of  a  movement's  sensible  effects  its  sufficient  motor-cue, 
or  must  there  be  an  additional  mental  antecedent,  in  the 
sliape  of  a  fiat,  decision,  consent,  volitional  mandate,  or 


WILL.  423 

other  synonymous  phenomenon  of  consciousness,  before  the 
movement  can  follow? 

I  answer:  Sometimes  the  bare  idea  is  sufficient,  but 
sometimes  an  additional  conscious  element,  in  the  shape 
of  a  fiat,  mandate,  or  express  consent,  has  to  intervene  and 
precede  the  movement.  The  cases  without  a  fiat  constitute 
the  more  fundamental,  because  the  more  simple,  variety. 
The  others  involve  a  special  complication,  which  must  be 
fully  discussed  at  the  proper  time.  For  the  present  let  us 
(urn  to  ideo-motor  action,  as  it  has  been  termed,  or  the 
sequence  of  movement  upon  the  mere  thought  of  it,  with- 
out a  special  fiat,  as  the  type  of  the  process  of  volition. 

Wherever  a  movement  unhesitatingly  and  immediately 
follows  iipou  the  idea  of  it,  we  have  ideo-motor  action. 
We  are  then  aware  of  nothing  between  the  conception 
and  the  execution.  All  sorts  of  neuro-muscular  pro- 
cesses come  between,  of  course,  but  we  know  absolutely 
nothing  of  them.  We  think  the  act,  and  it  is  done;  and 
that  is  all  that  introspection  tells  us  of  the  matter.  Dr. 
Carpenter,  who  first  used,  I  believe,  the  name  of  ideo- 
motor  action,  placed  it,  if  I  mistake  not,  among  the  curi- 
osities of  our  mental  life.  The  truth  is  that  it  is  no 
curiosity,  but  simply  the  normal  process  stripped  of  dis- 
guise. Whilst  talking  I  become  conscious  of  a  pin  on  the 
floor,  or  of  some  dust  on  my  sleeve.  Without  interrupting 
the  conversation  I  brush  away  the  dust  or  pick  up  the  pin. 
1  make  no  express  resolve,  but  the  mere  perception  of  the 
object  and  the  fleeting  notion  of  the  act  seem  of  themselves 
to  bring  the  latter  about.  Similarly,  I  sit  at  table  after 
dinner  and  find  myself  from  time  to  time  taking  nuts  or 
raisins  out  of  the  dish  and  eating  them.  My  dinner  prop- 
erly is  over,  and  in  the  heat  of  the  conversation  I  am 
hardly  aware  of  what  I  do;  but  the  perception  of  the 
fruit,  and  the  fleeting  notion  that  I  may  eat  it,  seem  fa- 
tally to  bring  the  act  about.  There  is  certainly  no  express 
fiat  here;  any  more  than  there  is  in  all  those  habitual 
goings  arid  comings  and  rearrangement^  of  ourselves  which 


424  PSYCHOLOGY. 

fill  every  hour  of  bhe  day,  and  which  incoming  sensations 
instigate  so  immediately  that  it  is  often  difficult  to  decide 
whether  not  to  call  them  reflex  rather  than  voluntary  acts. 
As  Lotze  says : 

"We  see  in  writing  or  piano-playing  a  great  number  of 
very  complicated  movements  following  quickly  one  upon 
the  other,  the  instigative  representations  of  which  re- 
mained scarcely  a  second  in  consciousness,  certainly  not 
long  enough  to  awaken  any  other  volition  than  the  general 
one  of  resigning  one's  self  without  reserve  to  the  passing 
over  of  representation  into  action.  All  the  acts  of  our 
daily  life  happen  in  this  wise:  Our  standing  up,  walking, 
talking,  all  this  never  demands  a  distinct  impulse  of  the 
will,  but  is  adequately  brought  about  by  the  pure  flux  of 
thought."  * 

In  all  this  the  determining  condition  of  the  unhesitating 
and  resistless  sequence  of  the  act  seems  to  be  the  absence  of 
any  conflicting  notion  in  the  mind.  Either  there  is  noth- 
ing else  at  all  in  the  mind,  or  what  is  there  does  not  con- 
flict. We  know  what  it  is  to  get  out  of  bed  on  a  freezing 
morning  in  a  room  without  a  fire,  and  how  the  very  vital 
principle  within  us  protests  against  the  ordeal.  Probably 
most  persons  have  lain  on  certain  mornings  for  an  hour  at 
a  time  unable  to  brace  themselves  to  the  resolve.  We 
think  how  late  we  shall  be,  how  the  duties  of  the  day  will 
suffer;  we  say,  "I  must  get  up,  this  is  ignominious,"  etc.; 
but  still  the  warm  couch  feels  too  delicious,  the  cold  out- 
side too  cruel,  and  resolutions  faints  away  and  postpones 
itself  again  and  again  just  as  it  seemed  on  the  verge  of 
bursting  the  resistance  and  passing  over  into  the  decisive 
act.  Now  how  do  we  ever  get  up  under  such  circum- 
stances ?  If  I  may  generalize  from  my  own  experience, 
we  more  often  than  not  get  up  without  any  struggle  or 
decision  at  all.  We  suddenly  find  that  we  have  got  up. 
A  fortunate  lapse  of  consciousness  occurs;  we  forget  both 

•Medioinische  Psycbologie,  p.  293. 


WILL.  425 

the  warmth  and  the  cold;  we  fall  into  some  revery  con- 
nected with  the  day's  life,  in  the  course  of  which  the  idea 
flashes  across  us,  "Hollo!  I  must  lie  here  no  longer" — an 
idea  which  at  that  lucky  instant  awakens  no  contradictory 
or  paralyzing  suggestions,  and  consequently  produces  im- 
mediately its  appropriate  motor  effects.  It  was  our  acute 
consciousness  of  both  the  warmth  and  the  cold  during  the 
period  of  struggle,  which  paralyzed  our  activity  then  and 
kept  our  idea  of  rising  in  the  condition  of  wish  aud  not 
of  will.  The  moment  these  inhibitory  ideas  ceased,  the 
original  idea  exerted  its  effects. 

This  case  seems  to  me  to  contain  in  miniature  form  the 
data  for  an  entire  psychology  of  volition.  It  was  in  fact 
through  meditating  on  the  phenomenon  in  my  own  person 
that  I  first  became  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  doctrine 
which  these  pages  present,  and  which  I  need  here  illustrate 
by  no  farther  examples.  The  reason  why  that  doctrine  is 
not  a  self-evident  truth  is  that  we  have  so  many  ideas 
which  do  not  result  in  action.  But  it  will  be  seen  that  in 
every  such  case,  without  exception,  that  is  because  other 
ideas  simultaneously  present  rob  them  of  their  impulsive 
power.  But  even  here,  and  when  a  movement  is  inhibited 
from  completely  taking  place  by  contrary  ideas,  it  will 
incipiently  take  place.     To  quote  Lotze  once  more: 

"  The  spectator  accompanies  the  throwing  of  a  billiard- 
ball,  or  the  thrust  of  the  swordsman,  with  slight  move- 
ments of  his  arm;  the  untaught  narrator  tells  his  story 
with  many  gesticulations ;  the  reader  while  absorbed  in  the 
perusal  of  a  battle-scene  feels  a  slight  tension  run  through 
his  muscular  system,  keeping  time  as  it  were  with  the 
actions  he  is  reading  of.  These  results  become  the  more 
marked  the  more  we  are  absorbed  in  thinking  of  the 
movements  which  suggest  them;  they  grow  fainter  ex- 
actly in  proportion  as  a  complex  consciousness,  under  the 
dominion  of  a  crowd  of  other  representations,  withstands 
the  passing  over  of  mental  contemplation  into  outward 
action," 


426  PSYCHOLOGY. 

The  '  willing-game/  the  exhibitions  of  so-called  '  mind- 
reading/  or  more  properly  muscle-reading,  which  have 
lately  grown  so  fashionable,  are  based  on  this  incipient 
obedience  of  muscular  contraction  to  idea,  even  when  the 
deliberate  intention  is  that  no  contraction  shall  occur. 

We  may  then  lay  it  down  for  certain  that  every  repre- 
se nlation  of  a  movement  awakens  in  some  degree  the  actual 
movement  which  is  its  object;  and  awakens  it  in  a  maxi- 
mum degree  whenever  it  is  not  kept  from  so  doing  by  an 
antagonistic  representation  present  simultaneously  to  the 
mind. 

The  express  fiat,  or  act  of  mental  consent  to  the  move- 
ment, comes  in  when  the  neutralization  of  the  antagonistic 
and  inhibitory  idea  is  required.  But  that  there  is  no 
express  fiat  needed  when  the  conditions  are  simple,  the 
reader  ought  now  to  be  convinced.  Lest,  however,  he 
should  still  share  the  common  prejudice  that  voluntary 
action  without  ?  exertion  of  will-power '  is  Hamlet  with 
the  prince's  part  left  out,  I  will  make  a  few  farther  re- 
marks. The  first  point  to  start  from,  in  understanding 
voluntary  action  and  the  possible  occurrence  of  it  with 
no  fiat  or  express  resolve,  is  the  fact  that  consciousness  is 
in  its  very  nature  impulsive.  We  do  not  first  have  a 
sensation  or  thought,  and  then  have  to  add  something 
dynamic  to  it  to  get  a  movement.  Every  pulse  of  feeling 
which  we  have  is  the  correlate  of  some  neural  activity 
that  is  already  on  its  way  to  instigate  a  movement.  Our 
sensations  and  thoughts  are  but  cross-sections,  as  it  were, 
of  currents  whose  essential  consequence  is  motion,  and 
which  have  no  sooner  run  in  at  one  nerve  than  they  are 
ready  to  run  out  by  another.  The  popular  notion  that  con- 
sciousness is  not  essentially  a  forerunner  of  activity,  but 
that  the  latter  must  result  from  some  superadded  'will- 
force/  is  a  very  natural  inference  from  those  special  cases 
in  which  we  think  of  an  act  for  an  indefinite  length  of 
time  without  the  action  taking  place.  These  cases,  how- 
ever, are  not  the  norm;   they  are  cases  of  inhibition  by 


WILL.  427 

antagonistic  thoughts.  When  the  blocking  is  released  we 
feel  as  if  an  inward  spring  were  let  loose,  and  this  is  the 
additional  impulse  or  fiat  upon  which  the  act  effectively 
succeeds.  We  shall  study  anon  the  blocking  and  its  re- 
lease. Our  higher  thought  is  full  of  it.  But  where  there 
is  no  blocking,  there  is  naturally  no  hiatus  between  the 
thought-process  and  the  motor  discharge.  Movement  is 
the  natural  immediate  effect  of  the  process  of  feeling,  irre- 
spective of  what  the  quality  of  the  feeling  may  be.  It  is  so 
in  reflex  action,  it  is  so  in  emotional  expression,  it  is  so  in 
the  voluntary  life.  Ideo-motor  action  is  thus  no  paradox, 
to  be  softened  or  explained  away.  It  obeys  the  type  of 
all  conscious  action,  and  from  it  one  must  start  to  explain 
the  sort  of  action  in  which  a  special  fiat  is  involved. 

It  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  that  the  inhibition  of  a 
movement  no  more  involves  an  express  effort  or  command 
than  its  execution  does.  Either  of  them  may  require  it. 
But  in  all  simple  and  ordinary  cases,  just  as  the  bare  pres- 
ence of  one  idea  prompts  a  movement,  so  the  bare  pres- 
ence of  another  idea  will  prevent  its  taking  place.  Try 
to  feel  as  if  you  were  crooking  your  finger,  whilst  keeping 
it  straight.  In  a  minute  it  will  fairly  tingle  with  the 
imaginary  change  of  position;  yet  it  will  not  sensibly 
move,  because  its  not  really  moving  is  also  a  part  of  what 
you  have  in  mind.  Drop  this  idea,  think  purely  and  sim- 
ply of  the  movement,  and  nothing  else,  and,  presto!  it 
takes  place  with  no  effort  at  all. 

A  waking  man's  behavior  is  thus  at  all  times  the  re- 
sultant of  two  opposing  neural  forces.  With  unimagina- 
ble fineness  some  currents  among  the  cells  and  fibres  of 
his  brain  are  playing  on  his  motor  nerves,  whilst  other 
currents,  as  unimaginably  fine,  are  playing  on  the  first 
currents,  damming  or  helping  them,  altering  their  direc- 
tion or  their  speed.  The  upshot  of  it  all  is,  that  whilst 
the  currents  must  always  end  by  being  drained  off  through 
some  motor  nerves,  they  are  drained  off  sometimes  through 
one  set  and  sometimes  through  another;  and  sometimes 


428  PSYCHOLOGY. 

they  keep  each  other  m  equilibrium  so  long  that  a  super- 
ficial observer  may  think  they  are  not  drained  off  at  all. 
Such  an  observer  must  remember,  however,  that  from  the 
physiological  point  of  view  a  gesture,  an  expression  of  the 
brow,  or  an  expulsion  of  the  breath  are  movements  as 
much  as  an  aet  of  locomotion  is.  A  king's  breath  slays 
as  well  as  an  assassin's  blow;  and  the  outpouring  of  those 
currents  which  the  magic  imponderable  streaming  of  oui 
ideas  accompanies  need  not  always  be  of  an  explosive  01 
otherwise  physically  conspicuous  kind. 

Action  after  Deliberation. — We  are  now  in  a  position  to 
describe  icliat  happens  in  deliberate  action,  or  when  the 
mind  has  many  objects  before  it,  related  to  each  other  in 
antagonistic  or  in  favorable  ways.  One  of  these  objects 
of  its  thought  may  be  an  act.  By  itself  this  would  prompt 
a  movement;  some  of  the  additional  objects  or  considera- 
tions, however,  block  the  motor  discharge,  whilst  others, 
on  the  contrary,  solicit  it  to  take  place.  The  result  is 
that  peculiar  feeling  of  inward  unrest  known  as  indecision. 
Fortunately  it  is  too  familiar  to  need  description,  for  to 
describe  it  would  be  impossible.  As  long  as  it  lasts,  with 
the  various  objects  before  the  attention,  we  are  said  to 
deliberate  ;  and  when  finally  the  original  suggestion  either 
prevails  and  makes  the  movement  take  place,  or  gets  defin- 
itively quenched  by  its  antagonists,  we  are  said  to  decide, 
or  to  utter  our  voluntary  fiat,  in  favor  of  one  or  the  other 
course.  The  reinforcing  and  inhibiting  objects  meanwhile 
are  termed  the  reasons  or  motives  by  which  the  decision  is 
brought  about. 

The  process  of  deliberation  contains  endless  degrees  of 
complication.  At  every  moment  of  it  our  consciousness 
is  of  an  extremely  complex  thing,  namely,  the  whole  set 
of  motives  and  their  conflict.  Of  this  complicated  ob- 
ject, the  totality  of  which  is  realized  more  or  less  dimly 
all  the  while  by  consciousness,  certain  parts  stand  out 
more  or  less  sharply  at  one  moment  in  the  foreground, 
and  at  another  moment  other  parts,  in  consequence  of  the 


WILL.  429 

oscillations  of  our  attention,  and  of  the  '  associative  '  flow 
of  our  ideas.  But  no  matter  how  sharp  the  foreground- 
reasons  may  be,  or  how  imminently  close  to  bursting 
through  the  dam  and  carrying  the  motor  consequences 
their  own  way,  the  background,  however  dimly  felt,  is 
always  there  as  a  fringe  (p.  163);  and  its  presence  (so 
ioiig  as  the  indecision  actually  lasts)  serves  as  an  effective 
check  upon  the  irrevocable  discharge.  The  deliberation 
may  last  for  weeks  or  months,  occupying  at  intervals  the 
mind.  The  motives  which  yesterday  seemed  full  of 
urgency  and  blood  and  life  to-day  feel  strangely  weak  and 
pale  and  dead.  But  as  little  to-day  as  to-morrow  is  the 
question  finally  resolved.  Something  tells  us  that  all  this 
is  provisional;  that  the  weakened  reasons  will  wax  strong 
again,  and  the  stronger  weaken;  that  equilibrium  is  un- 
reached; that  testing  our  reasons,  not  obeying  them,  is 
still  the  order  of  the  day,  and  that  we  must  wait  awhile, 
patiently  or  impatiently,  until  our  mind  is  made  up  'for 
good  and  all/  This  inclining  first  to  one,  then  to  another 
future,  both  of  which  we  represent  as  possible,  resembles 
the  oscillations  to  and  fro  of  a  material  body  within  the 
limits  of  its  elasticity.  There  is  inward  strain,  but  no 
outward  rupture.  And  this  condition,  plainly  enough,  is 
susceptible  of  indefinite  continuance,  as  well  in  the  physi- 
cal mass  as  in  the  mind.  If  the  elasticity  give  way,  how- 
ever, if  the  dam  ever  do  break,  and  the  currents  burst  the 
crust,  vacillation  is  over  and  decision  is  irrevocably  there. 

The  decision  may  come  in  either  of  many  modes.  I 
will  try  briefly  to  sketch  the  most  characteristic  types  of 
it,  merely  warning  the  reader  that  this  is  only  an  intro- 
spective account  of  symptoms  and  phenomena,  and  that 
all  questions  of  causal  agency,  whether  neural  or  spiritual, 
are  relegated  to  a  later  page. 

Five  Chief  Types  of  Decision. — Turning  now  to  the  form 
of  the  decision  itself,  we  may  distinguish  five  chief  types. 
Hie  first  may  be  called  the  reasonable  type.  It  is  that  of 
those  cases  in  which  the  arguments  for  and  against  a  given 


430  PSYCHOLOGY. 

course  Beem  gradually  and  almost  insensibly  to  settle 
themselves  in  the  mind  and  to  end  by  leaving  a  clear 
balance  in  favor  of  one  alternative,  which  alternative  we 

then  adopt  without  effort  or  constraint.  Until  this  rational 
balancing  of  the  books  is  consummated  we  have  a  calm 
feeling  that  the  evidence  is  not  yet  all  in,  and  this  keeps 
action  in  suspense.  But  some  day  Ave  wake  with  the  sense 
that  we  see  the  matter  rightly,  that  no  new  light  will  be 
thrown  on  it  by  farther  delay,  and  that  it  had  better  be 
settled  now'.  In  this  easy  transition  from  doubt  to  assur- 
ance  we  seem  to  ourselves  almost  passive;  the 'reasons' 
which  decide  us  appearing  to  flow  in  from  the  nature  ol 
things,  and  to  owe  nothing  to  our  will.  We  have,  however, 
a  perfect  sense  of  being  free,  in  that  we  are  devoid  of  any 
feeling  of  coercion.  The  conclusive  reason  for  the  decision 
in  these  cases  usually  is  the  discovery  that  we  can  refer 
the  case  to  a  class  upon  which  we  are  accustomed  to  act 
unhesitatingly  in  a  certain  stereotyped  way.  It  may  be 
said  in  general  that  a  great  part  of  every  deliberation  con- 
sists in  the  turning  over  of  all  the  possible  modes  of  con- 
ceiving the  doing  or  not  doing  of  the  act  in  point.  The 
moment  we  hit  upon  a  conception  which  lets  us  apply 
some  principle  of  action  which  is  a  fixed  and  stable  part  of 
our  Ego,  our  state  of  doubt  is  at  an  end.  Persons  of 
authority,  who  have  to  make  many  decisions  in  the  day, 
carry  with  them  a  set  of  heads  of  classification,  each  bear- 
ing its  volitional  consequence,  and  under  these  they  seek  as 
far  as  possible  to  range  each  new  emergency  as  it  occurs. 
It  is  where  the  emergency  belongs  to  a  species  without 
precedent,  to  which  consequently  no  cut-and-dried  maxim 
will  apply,  that  we  feel  most  at  a  loss,  and  are  distressed 
at  the  indeterminateness  of  our  task.  As  soon,  however. 
as  we  see  our  way  to  a  familiar  classification,  we  are  at  ease 
again.  In  action  as  in  reasoning,  then,  the  great  thing  is 
the  quest  of  the  right  conception.  The  concrete  dilemma? 
do  not  come  to  us  with  labels  gummed  upon  their  backs. 
We  may  name  them  by  many  names.     The  wise  man  is  he 


WILL.  431 

who  succeeds  in  finding  the  name  which  suits  the  needs  of 
the  particular  occasion  best  (p.  357  ff.).  A  '  reasonable ' 
character  is  one  who  has  a  store  of  stable  and  worthy  ends, 
and  who  does  not  decide  about  an  action  till  he  has  calmly 
ascertained  whether  it  be  ministerial  or  detrimental  to  any 
one  of  these. 

In  the  next  two  types  of  decision,  the  final  fiat  occurs 
before  the  evidence  is  all  '  in/  It  often  happens  that  no 
paramount  and  authoritative  reason  for  either  course  will 
come.  Either  seems  a  good,  and  there  is  no  umpire  to  de- 
cide which  should  yield  its  place  to  the  other.  We  grow 
tired  of  long  hesitation  and  inconclusiveness,  and  the  hour 
may  come  when  we  feel  that  even  a  bad  decision  is  better 
than  no  decision  at  all.  Under  these  conditions  it  will  often 
happen  that  some  accidental  circumstance,  supervening  at 
a  particular  movement  upon  our  mental  weariness,  will 
upset  the  balance  in  the  direction  of  one  of  the  alterna- 
tives, to  which  then  we  feel  ourselves  committed,  although 
an  opposite  accident  at  the  same  time  might  have  produced 
the  opposite  result. 

In  the  second  type  our  feeling  is  to  a  great  extent  that 
of  letting  ourselves  drift  with  a  certain  indifferent  acqui- 
escence in  a  direction  accidentally  determined  from  with- 
out, with  the  conviction  that,  after  all,  we  might  as  well 
stand  by  this  course  as  by  the  other,  and  that  things  are 
in  any  event  sure  to  turn  out  sufficiently  right. 

In  the  third  type  the  determination  seems  equally  acci- 
dental, but  it  comes  from  within,  and  not  from  without. 
It  often  happens,  when  the  absence  of  imperative  princi- 
ple is  perplexing  and  suspense  distracting,  that  we  find 
ourselves  acting,  as  it  Avere,  automatically,  and  as  if  by  a 
spontaneous  discharge  of  our  nerves,  in  the  direction  of 
one  of  the  horns  of  the  dilemma.  But  so  exciting  is  this 
sense  of  motion  after  our  intolerable  pent-up  state  that 
we  eagerly  throw  ourselves  into  it.  '  Forward  now ! '  we 
inwardly  cry,  '  though  the  heavens  fall.'  This  reckless  and 
exultant  espousal  of  an  energy  so  little  premeditated  by  us 


432  PS7 OTOLOGY. 

that  we  feel  rather  like  passive  spectators  cheering  on  the 
display  of  some  extraneous  force  than  like  voluntary 
agents  is  a  type  of  decision  too  abrupt  and  tumultuous  to 
occur  often  in  humdrum  and  cool-blooded  natures.  But 
it  is  probably  frequent  in  persons  of  strong  emotional  en- 
dowment and  unstable  or  vacillating  character.  And  in 
men  of  the  world-shaking  type,  the  Napoleons,  Luthers, 
etc.,  in  whom  tenacious  passion  combines  with  ebullient 
activity,  when  by  any  chance  the  passion's  outlet  has  been 
dammed  by  scruples  or  apprehensions,  the  resolution  is 
probably  often  of  this  catastrophic  kind.  The  flood  breaks 
quite  unexpectedly  through  the  dam.  That  it  should  so 
often  do  so  is  quite  sufficient  to  account  for  the  tendency 
of  these  characters  to  a  fatalistic  mood  of  mind.  And  the 
fatalistic  mood  itself  is  sure  to  reinforce  the  strength  of 
the  energy  just  started  on  its  exciting  path  of  discharge. 

There  is  a  fourth  form  of  decision,  which  often  ends 
deliberation  as  suddenly  as  the  third  form  does.  It  comes 
when,  in  consequence  of  some  outer  experience  or  some 
inexplicable  inward  change,  toe  suddenly  2Klss  from  the 
easy  and  careless  to  the  sober  and  strenuous  mood,  or 
possibly  the  other  way.  The  whole  scale  of  values  of  our 
motives  and  impulses  then  undergoes  a  change  like  that 
which  a  change  of  the  observer's  level  produces  on  a  view. 
The  most  sobering  possible  agents  are  objects  of  grief  and 
fear.  When  one  of  these  affects  us,  all  'light  fantastic' 
notions  lose  their  motive  power,  all  solemn  ones  find  theirs 
multiplied,  many-fold.  The  consequence  is  an  instant 
abandonment  cf  the  more  trivial  projects  with  which  we 
had  heen  dallying,  and  an  instant  practical  acceptance  of 
the  more  grim  and  earnest  alternative  which  till  then 
could  not  extort  our  mind's  consent.  All  those  '  changes 
of  heart/  'awakenings  of  conscience/  etc.,  which  make 
new  men  of  so  many  of  us  may  be  classed  under  this 
head.  The  character  abruptly  rises  to  another  'bvel/  and 
deliberation  comes  to  an  immediate  end. 

In  tho  fifth  and  final  type  of  decision,  the  feeling  that 


WILL.  438 

the  evidence  is  all  in,  and  that  reason  has  balanced  the 
books,  may  be  either  present  or  absent.  But  in  either  case 
we  feel,  in  deciding,  as  if  we  ourselves  by  our  own  wilful 
act  inclined  the  beam :  in  the  former  case  by  adding  our 
living  effort  to  the  weight  of  the  logical  reason  which, 
taken  alone,  seems  powerless  to  make  the  act  discharge; 
in  the  latter  by  a  kind  of  creative  contribution  of  some- 
thins:  instead  of  a  reason  which  does  a  reason's  work.  The 
slow  dead  heave  of  the  will  that  is  felt  in  these  instances 
makes  of  them  a  class  altogether  different  subjectively 
from  all  the  four  preceding  classes.  AVhat  the  heave  of 
the  will  betokens  metaphysically,  what  the  effort  might 
lead  ns  to  infer  about  a  will-power  distinct  from  motives, 
are  not  matters  that  concern  us  yet.  Subjectively  and 
phenomenally,  the  feeling  of  effort,  absent  from  the  former 
decisions,  accompanies  these.  Whether  it  be  the  dreary 
resignation  for  the  sake  of  austere  and  naked  duty  of  all 
sorts  of  rich  mundane  delights;  or  whether  it  be  the  heavy 
resolve  that  of  two  mutually  exclusive  trains  of  future 
fact,  both  sweet  and  good  and  with  no  strictly  objective 
or  imperative  principle  of  choice  between  them,  one  shall 
forevermore  become  impossible,  while  the  other  shall  be- 
come reality;  it  is  a  desolate  and  acrid  sort  of  act,  an  en- 
trance into  a  lonesome  moral  wilderness.  If  examined 
closely,  its  chief  difference  from  the  former  cases  appears 
to  be  that  in  those  cases  the  mind  at  the  moment  of  de- 
ciding on  the  triumphant  alternative  dropped  the  other 
one  wholly  or  nearly  out  of  sight,  whereas  here  both  alter- 
natives are  steadily  held  in  view,  and  in  the  very  act  of 
murdering  the  vanquished  possibility  the  chooser  realize? 
how  much  in  that  instant  he  is  making  himself  lose.  It 
is  deliberately  driving  a  thorn  into  one's  flesh;  and  the 
sense  of  inward  effort  with  which  the  act  is  accompanied 
is  an  element  which  sets  this  fifth  type  of  decision  in 
strong  contrast  with  the  previous  four  varieties,  and  makes 
of  it  an  altogether  peculiar  sort  of  mental  phenomenon. 
The  immense  majority  of  human  decisions  are  decisions 


4'M  PSYCHOLOGY. 

without  effort.  In  comparatively  few  <»f  them,  in  most 
people,  does  effort  accompany  the  final  act.  We  are,  I 
think,  misled  into  supposing  that  effort  is  more  frequent 
than  it  is  by  the  fact  that  during  deliberation  we  so  often 
have  a  feeling  of  how  great  an  effort  it  would  take  to  make 
a  decision  now.  Later,  after  the  decision  has  made  itself 
with  ease,  we  recollect  this  and  erroneously  suppose  the 
effort  also  to  have  been  made  then. 

The  existence  of  the  effort  as  a  phenomenal  fact  in  our 
consciousness  cannot  of  course  be  doubted  or  denied.  Its 
significance,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  matter  about  which 
the  gravest  difference  of  opinion  prevails.  Questions  as 
momentous  as  that  of  the  very  existence  of  spiritual  cau- 
sality, as  vast  as  that  of  universal  predestination  or  free- 
will, depend  on  its  interpretation.  It  therefore  becomes 
essential  that  we  study  with  some  care  the  conditions  under 
which  the  feeling  of  volitional  effort  is  found. 

The  Feeling  of  Effort. — When  I  said,  awhile  back,  that 
consciousness  (or  the  neural  process  which  goes  with  it)  is 
in  ils  very  nature  impulsive,  I  should  have  added  the 
proviso  that  it  must  be  sufficiently  intense.  Now  there  are 
remarkable  differences  in  the  power  of  different  sorts  of 
consciousness  to  excite  movement.  The  intensity  of  some 
feelings  is  practically  apt  to  be  below  the  discharging 
point,  whilst  that  of  others  is  apt  to  be  above  it.  By 
practically  apt,  I  mean  apt  under  ordinary  circumstances. 
These  circumstances  may  be  habitual  inhibitions,  like  thai. 
comfortable  feeling  of  the  dolce  far  niente  which  gives  to 
•  arli  and  all  of  us  a  certain  dose  of  laziness  only  to  be 
overcome  by  the  acuteness  of  the  impulsive  spur;  or  they 
may  consist  in  the  native  inertia,  or  internal  resistance,  of 
the  motor  centres  themselves,  making  explosion  impossible 
until  a  certain  inward  tension  has  been  reached  and  over- 
passed.  These  conditions  may  vary  from  one  person  to  an- 
other, and  in  the  same  person  from  time  to  time.  The 
neural  inertia  may  wax  or  wane,  and  the  habitual  inhibi- 
tions dwindle  or  augment.      The  intensity  of  particular 


WILL.  435 

thought-processes  and  stimulations  may  also  change  inde- 
pendently, and  particular  paths  of  association  grow  more 
pervious  or  less  so.  There  thus  result  great  possibilities 
of  alteration  in  the  actual  impulsive  efficacy  of  particular 
motives  compared  with  others.  It  is  where  the  normally 
less  efficacious  motive  becomes  more  efficacious,  and  the 
normally  more  efficacious  one  less  so,  that  actions  ordinarily 
effortless,  or  abstinences  ordinarily  easy,  either  become  im- 
possible, or  are  effected  (if  at  all)  by  the  expenditure  of 
effort.  A  little  more  description  will  make  it  plainer  what 
these  cases  are. 

Healthiness  of  Will.  —  There  is  a  certain  normal  ratio 
in  the  impulsive  power  of  different  mental  objects,  which 
characterizes  what  may  be  called  ordinary  healthiness  of 
will,  and  which  is  departed  from  only  at  exceptional  times 
or  by  exceptional  individuals.  The  states  of  mind  which 
normally  possess  the  most  impulsive  quality  are  either 
those  which  represent  objects  of  passion,  appetite,  or  emo- 
tion— objects  of  instinctive  reaction,  in  short;  or  they  are 
feelings  or  ideas  of  pleasure  or  of  pain ;  or  ideas  which  for 
any  reason  we  have  grown  accustomed  to  obey,  so  that  the 
habit  of  reacting  on  them  is  ingrained ;  or  finally,  in  com- 
parison with  ideas  of  remoter  objects,  they  are  ideas  of 
objects  present  or  near  in  space  and  time.  Compared  with 
these  various  objects,  all  far-off  considerations,  all  highly 
abstract  conceptions,  unaccustomed  reasons,  and  motives 
foreign  to  the  instinctive  history  of  the  race,  have  little  or 
no  impulsive  power.  They  prevail,  when  they  ever  do 
prevail,  with  effort;  and  the  normal,  as  distinguished  from 
the  pathological,  sphere  of  effort  is  thus  found  wherever 
non-instinctive  motives  to  behavior  mtist  be  reinforced  so  as 
to  rule  the  day. 

Healthiness  of  will  moreover  requires  a  certain  amount 
of  complication  in  the  process  which  precedes^  the  fiat  or 
the  act.  Each  stimulus  or  idea,  at  the  same  time  that  it 
wakens  its  own  impulse,  must  also  arouse  other  ideas  along 
with  their  characteristic  impulses,  and  action  must  finally 


486  PSYCHOLOGY. 

follow,  neither  too  slowly  nor  too  rapidly,  as  the  resultant 
of  all  the  forces  thus  engaged.  Even  when  the  decision  is 
pretty  prompt,  the  normal  thing  is  thus  a  sort  of  prelimi- 
nary survey  of  the  field  and  a  vision  of  which  course  i? 
best  before  the  iiat  comes.  And  where  the  will  is  healthy, 
the  visum  must  he  right  (i.e.,  the  motives  must  be  on  the 
whole  in  a  normal  or  not  too  unusual  ratio  to  each  other), 
and  the  action  must  obey  the  vision's  lead. 

Unhealthiness  of  will  may  thus  come  about  in  many 
ways.  The  action  may  follow  the  stimulus  or  idea  too 
rapidly,  leaving  no  time  for  the  arousal  of  restraining 
associates— we  then  have  a  precipitate  will.  Or,  although 
the  associates  may  come,  the  ratio  which  the  impulsive 
and  inhibitive  forces  normally  bear  to  each  other  may  be 
distorted,  and  we  then  have  a  will  which  is  perverse.  The 
perversity,  in  turn,  may  be  due  to  either  of  many  causes — 
too  much  intensity,  or  too  little,  here;  too  much  or  toe 
little  inertia  there;  or  elsewhere  too  much  or  too  little 
inhibitory  power.  If  we  compare  the  outward  symptoms 
of  perversity  together,  the//  fall  into  two  groups,  in  one  of 
which  normal  actions  are  impossible,  and  in  the  other 
abnormal  ones  are  irrepressible.  Brieily,  we  mag  call  them 
respectively  the  obstructed  and  the  explosive  will. 

It  must  be  kept  in  mind,  however,  that  since  the  re- 
sultant action  is  always  due  to  the  ratio  between  the 
obstructive  and  the  explosive  forces  which  are  present, 
we  never  can  tell  by  the  mere  outward  symptoms  to  what 
elementary  cause  the  perversion  of  a  man's  will  may  be 
due,  whether  to  an  increase  of  one  component  or  a  dimi- 
nution of  the  other.  One  may  grow  explosive  as  readily 
by  losing  the  usual  brakes  as  by  getting  up  more  of  the 
impulsive  steam;  and  one  may  find  things  impossible  as 
well  through  the  enfeeblement  of  the  original  desire  as 
through  the  advent  of  new  lions  in  the  path.  As  Dr. 
Clouston  says,  "  the  driver  may  be  so  weak  that  he  cannot 
control  well-broken  horses,  or  the  horses  may  be  so  hard 
mouthed  that  no  driver  can  pull  them  up." 


WILL.  437 

The  Explosive  Will.  (1.  From  Defective  Inhibition. — 
There  is  a  normal  type  of  character,  for  example,  in  which 
impulses  seem  to  discharge  so  promptly  into  movements 
that  inhibitions  get  no  time  to  arise.  These  are  the  '  dare- 
devil '  and  '  mercurial '  temperaments,  overflowing  with 
animation  and  fizzling  with  talk,  which  are  so  common 
in  the  Slavic  and  Celtic  races,  and  with  which  the  cold- 
blooded and  long-headed  English  character  forms  so 
marked  a  contrast.  Simian  these  people  seem  to  us,  whilst 
we  seem  to  them  reptilian.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  judge, 
as  between  an  obstructed  and  an  explosive  individual, 
which  has  the  greater  sum  of  vital  energy.  An  explosive 
Italian  with  good  perception  and  intellect  will  cut  a  figure 
as  a  perfectly  tremendous  fellow,  on  an  inward  capital 
that  could  be  tucked  away  inside  of  an  obstructed  Yankee 
and  hardly  let  you  know  that  it  was  there.  He  will  be 
the  king  of  his  company,  sing  the  songs  and  make  the 
speeches,  lead  the  parties,  carry  out  the  practical  jokes, 
kiss  the  girls,  fight  the  men,  and,  if  need  be,  lead  the 
forlorn  hopes  and  enterprises,  so  that  an  onlooker  would 
think  he  has  more  life  in  his  little  finger  than  can  exist 
in  the  whole  body  of  a  correct  judicious  fellow.  But  the 
judicious  fellow  all  the  while  may  have  all  these  possi- 
bilities and  more  besides,  ready  to  break  out  in  the  same 
or  even  a  more  violent  way,  if  only  the  brakes  were  taken 
off.  It  is  the  absenee  of  scruples,  of  consequences,  of 
considerations,  the  extraordinary  simplification  of  each 
moment's  mental  outlook,  that  gives  to  the  explosive 
individual  such  motor  energy  and  ease;  it  need  not  be 
the  greater  intensity  of  any  of  his  passions,  motives,  or 
thoughts.  As  mental  evolution  goes  on,  the  complexity 
of  human  consciousness  grows  ever  greater,  and  with  it 
the  multiplication  of  the  inhibitions  to  which  every  im- 
pulse is  exposed.  Plow  much  freedom  of  discourse  we 
English  folk  lose  because  we  feel  obliged  always  to  speak 
the  truth!  This  predominance  of  inhibition  has  a  bad 
as  well  as  a  good  side;   and  if  a  man's  impulses  are  in 


438  PSYCHOLOGY. 

the  main  orderly  as  well  as  prompt,  if  he  has  courage 
to  accept  their  consequences,  and  intellect  to  lead  them 
bo  a  successful  end,  he  is  all  the  better  for  his  hair- 
trigger  organization,  and  for  not  being  'sicklied  o'er  with 
the  pale  casl  of  thought/  Many  of  the  most  successful 
military  and  revolutionary  characters  in  history  have 
belonged  to  this  simple  but  quick-witted  impulsive  type. 
Problems  come  much  harder  to  reflective  and  inhibitive 
minds.  They  can,  it  is  true,  solve  much  vaster  problems; 
and  they  can  avoid  many  a  mistake  to  which  the  men  of 
impulse  are  exposed.  But  when  the  latter  do  not  make 
mistakes,  or  when  they  are  always  able  to  retrieve  them, 
theirs  is  one  of  the  most  engaging  and  indispensable  of 
human  types. 

In  infancy,  and  in  certain  conditions  of  exhaustion,  as 
well  as  in  peculiar  pathological  states,  the  inhibitory 
power  may  fail  to  arrest  the  explosions  of  the  impulsive 
discharge.  We  have  then  an  explosive  temperament 
temporarily  realized  in  an  individual  who  at  other  times 
may  be  of  a  relatively  obstructed  type.  In  other  persons, 
again,  hysterics,  epileptics,  criminals  of  the  neurotic  class 
called  degeiu'res  by  French  authors,  there  is  such  a  native 
feebleness  in  the  mental  machinery  that  before  the  inhibitory 
ideas  can  arise  the  impulsive  ones  have  already  discharged 
into  act.  In  persons  healthy-willed  by  nature  bad  habits 
can  bring  about  this  condition,  especially  in  relation  to  par- 
ticular sorts  of  impulse.  Ask  half  the  common  drunkards 
you  know  why  it  is  that  they  fall  so  often  a  prey  to  tempta- 
tion, and  they  will  say  that  most  of  the  time  they  cannot 
tell.  It  is  a  sort  of  vertigo  with  them.  Their  nervous 
centres  have  become  a  sluice-way  pathologically  unlocked 
by  every  passing  conception  of  a  bottle  and  a  glass.  They 
do  not  thirst  for  the  beverage;  the  taste  of  it  may  even 
appear  repugnant ;  and  they  perfectly  foresee  the  morrow's 
remorse.  But  when  they  think  of  the  liquor  or  see  it,  they 
find  themselves  preparing  to  drink,  and  do  not  stop  them- 
selves: and  more  than  this  they  cannot  say.     Similarly  a 


will.  43y 

man  may  lead  a  life  of  incessant  love-making  ov  sexual 
indulgence,  though  what  spurs  him  thereto  seems  to  be 
trivial  suggestions  and  notions  of  possibility  rather  than  any 
real  solid  strength  of  passion  or  desire.     Such  characters 
are  too  flimsy  even  to  be  bad  in  any  deep  sense  of  the  word. 
The  paths  of  natural  (or  it  may  be  unnatural)  impulse  are 
so  pervious  in  them  that  the  slightest  rise  in  the  level  of  in- 
nervation produces  an  overflow.     It  is  the  condition  recog-. 
nized  in   pathology  as    'irritable   weakness.'      The   phase 
known  as  nascency  or  latency  is  so  short  in  the  excitement 
of  the  neural  tissues  that  there  is  no  opportunity  for  strain 
or  tension  to  accumulate  within  them;  and  the  consequence 
is  that  with  all  the  agitation  and  activity,  the  amount  of 
real  feeling  engaged  may  be  very  small.     The  hysterical 
temperament   is   the    playground  par    excellence    of   this 
unstable  equilibrium.     One  of  these  subjects  will  be  filled 
with  what  seems  the  most  genuine  and  settled  aversion  to 
a  certain  line  of  conduct,  and  the  very  next  instant  follow 
the  stirring  of  temptation  and  plunge  in  it  up  to  the 
neck. 

2.)  From  Exaggerated  Impulsion. — Disorderly  and  impul- 
sive conduct  may,  on  the  other  hand,  come  about  where 
the  neural  tissues  preserve  their  proper  inward  tone,  and 
where  the  inhibitory  power  is  normal  or  even  unusually 
great.  In  such  cases  the  strength  of  the  impulsive  idea  is 
prefer -naturally  exalted,  and  what  would  be  for  most 
people  the  passing  suggestion  of  a  possibility  becomes  a 
gnawing,  craving  urgency  to  act.  Works  on  insanity  are 
full  of  examples  of  these  morbid  insistent  ideas,  in  ob- 
stinately struggling  against  which  the  unfortunate  victim's 
soul  often  sweats  with  agony  ere  at  last  it  gets  swept 
away. 

The  craving  for  drink  in  real  dipsomaniacs,  or  for  opium 
or  chloral  in  those  subjugated,  is  of  a  strength  of  which 
normal  persons  can  form  no  conception.  "Were  a  keg 
of  rum  in  one  corner  of  a  room  and  were  a  cannon  con- 
stantly discharging  balls  between  me  and  it,  I  could   not 


Mil  PSYCHOLOGY. 

refrain  from  passing  before  that  cannon  in  order  to  get 
tlif  rum;  "  "  If  a  bottle  of  brandy  stood  at  one  hand  and 
the  pit  of  hell  yawned  at  the  other,  and  I  were  convinced 
that  I  should  be  pushed  in  as  sure  as  I  took  one  glass,  I 
conld  noi  refrain:"  such  statements  abound  in  dipso- 
maniacs' mouths.  Dr.  Mussey  of  Cincinnati  relates  this 
ease: 

"A  few  years  ago  a  tippler  was  put  into  an  almshouse 
in  this  State.  Within  a  few  days  he  had  devised  various 
expedients  to  procure  rum,  but  failed.  At  length,  how- 
ever, he  hit  upon  one  which  was  successful.  He  went 
into  the  wood-yard  of  the  establishment,  placed  one  hand 
upon  the  block,  and  with  an  axe  in  the  other  struck  it 
off  at  a  single  blow.  With  the  stump  raised  and  stream- 
ing he  ran  into  the  house  and  cried,  'Get  some  rum!  get 
some  rum !  My  hand  is  off ! '  In  the  confusion  and  bustle 
of  the  occasion  a  bowl  of  rum  was  brought,  into  which  he 
plunged  the  bleeding  member  of  his  body,  then  raising 
the  howl  to  his  mouth,  drank  freely,  and  exultingly  ex- 
claimed,  'Now  I  am  satisfied.'  Dr.  J.  E.  Turner  tells  of 
a  man  who,  while  under  treatment  for  inebriety,  during 
four  weeks  secretly  drank  the  alcohol  from  six  jars  con- 
taining morbid  specimens.  On  asking  him  why  he  had 
committed  this  loathsome  act,  he  replied:  'Sir,  it  is  as 
impossible  for  me  to  control  this  diseased  appetite  as  it  is 
for  me  to  control  the  pulsations  of  my  heart/  " 

Often  the  insistent  idea  is  of  a  trivial  sort,  but  it  may 
wear  the  patient's  life  out.  His  hands  feel  dirty,  they 
must  be  washed.  He  knows  they  are  not  dirty;  yet  to 
get  rid  of  the  teasing  idea  he  washes  them.  The  idea, 
however,  returns  in  a  moment,  and  the  unfortunate  victim, 
who  is  not  in  the  least  deluded  intellectually,  will  end  by 
spending  the  whole  day  at  the  wash-stand.  Or  his  clothes 
are  not  'rightly'  put  on;  and  to  banish  the  thought  he 
takes  them  off  and  puts  them  on  again,  till  his  toilet  con- 
sumes two  or  three  hours  of  time.  Most  people  have  the 
potentiality  of  this  disease.     To  few  has  it  not  happened. 


WILL.  441 

to  conceive,  after  getting  into  bed,  that  they  may  have 
forgotten  to  lock  the  front  door,  or  to  turn  out  the  entry 
gas.  And  few  of  us  have  not  on  some  occasion  got  up  to 
repeat  the  performance,  less  because  we  believed  in  the 
reality  of  its  omission  than  because  only  so  could  we  banish 
the  worrying  doubt  and  get  to  sleep. 

The  Obstructed  Will. — In  striking  contrast  with  the 
cases  in  which  inhibition  is  insufficient  or  impulsion  in 
excess  are  those  in  which  impulsion  is  insufficient  or 
inhibition  in  excess.  We  all  know  the  condition  de- 
scribed on  p.  218,  in  which  the  mind  for  a  few  moments 
seems  to  lose  its  focussing  power  and  to  be  unable  to 
rally  its  attention  to  any  determinate  thing.  At  such 
times  we  sit  blankly  staring  and  do  nothing.  The  objects 
of  consciousness  fail  to  touch  the  quick  or  break  the  skin. 
They  are  there,  but  do  not  reach  the  level  of  effectiveness. 
This  state  of  non-efficacious  presence  is  the  normal  con- 
dition of  some  objects,  in  all  of  us.  Great  fatigue  or 
exhaustion  may  make  it  the  condition  of  almost  all  ob- 
jects; and  an  apathy  resembling  that  then  brought  about 
is  recognized  in  asylums  under  the  name  of  abulia  as  a 
symptom  of  mental  disease.  The  healthy  state  of  the  will 
requires,  as  aforesaid,  both  that  vision  should  be  right, 
and  that  action  should  obey  its  lead.  But  in  the  morbid 
condition  in  question  the  vision  may  be  wholly  unaffected, 
and  the  intellect  clear,  and  yet  the  act  either  fails  to 
follow  or  follows  in  some  other  way. 

"  Video  meliora  proboque,  deteriora  seqnor"  is  the 
classic  expression  of  this  latter  condition  of  mind.  The 
moral  tragedy  of  human  life  comes  almost  wholly  from 
the  fact  that  the  link  is  ruptured  which  normally  should 
hold  between  vision  of  the  truth  and  action,  and  that  this 
pungent  sense  of  effective  reality  will  not  attach  to  certain 
ideas.  Men  do  not  differ  so  much  in  their  mere  feelings 
and  conceptions.  Their  notions  of  possibility  and  their 
ideals  are  not  as  far  apart  as  might  be  argued  from  their 
differing  fates.     No  class  of  them  have  better  sentiments 


14  kJ  PSYCHO  LOOT. 

or  feci  more  constantly  the  difference  between  the  higher 
and  the  lower  path  in  life  than  the  hopeless  failures,  the 
sentimentalists,  the  drunkards,  the  schemers,  the  'dead- 
beats,'  whose  life  is  one  long  contradiction  between  knowl- 
edge and  action,  and  who,  with  full  command  of  theory, 
never  get  to  holding  their  limp  characters  erect.  No  one 
eats  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  as  they  do;  as 
far  as  moral  insight  goes,  in  comparison  with  them,  the 
orderly  and  prosperous  philistines  whom  they  scandalize 
are  sucking  babes.  And  yet  their  moral  knowledge,  always 
there  grumbling  and  rumbling  in  the  background, — dis- 
cerning, commenting,  protesting,  longing,  half  resolving, 
— never  wholly  resolves,  never  gets  its  voice  out  of  the 
minor  into  the  major  key,  or  its  speech  out  of  the  sub- 
junctive into  the  imperative  mood,  never  breaks  the  spell, 
never  takes  the  helm  into  its  hands.  In  such  characters 
as  Rousseau  and  Restif  it  would  seem  as  if  the  lower 
motives  had  all  the  impulsive  efficacy  in  their  hands. 
Like  trains  with  the  right  of  way,  they  retain  exclusive 
possession  of  the  track.  The  more  ideal  motives  exist 
alongside  of  them  in  profusion,  but  they  never  get  switched 
on,  and  the  man's  conduct  is  no  more  influenced  by  them 
than  an  express  train  is  influenced  by  a  wayfarer  standing 
by  the  roadside  and  calling  to  be  taken  aboard.  They 
are  an  inert  accompaniment  to  the  end  of  time;  and  the 
consciousness  of  inward  hollowness  that  accrues  from 
habitually  seeing  the  better  only  to  do  the  worse,  is  one 
of  the  saddest  feelings  one  can  bear  with  him  through 
this  vale- of  tears. 

Effort  feels  like  an  original  force.  We  now  see  at  one 
new  when  it  is  that  effort  complicates  volition.  It  does 
so  whenever  a  rarer  anil  more  ideal  impulse  is  called  upon 
to  neutralize  others  of  a  more  instinctive  and  habitual 
kind;  it  does  so  whenever  strongly  explosive  tendencies 
are  checked,  or  strongly  obstructive  conditions  overcome. 
The  dme  Hen  nee,  the  child  of  the  sunshine,  at  whose;  birth 
the  fairies  made  their  gifts,  does  not  need  much  of  it  in 


WILL.  443 

his  life.  The  hero  and  the  neurotic  subject,  on  the  other 
hand,  do.  Now  our  spontaneous  way  of  conceiving  the 
effort,  under  all  these  circumstances,  is  as  an  active  force 
adding  its  strength  to  that  of  the  motives  which  ultimately 
prevail.  When  cuter  forces  impinge  upon  a  body,  Ave  say 
that  the  resultant  motion  is  in  the  line  of  least  resistance, 
or  of  greatest  traction.  But  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  our 
spontaneous  language  never  speaks  of  volition  with  effort 
in  this  way.  Of  course  if  we  proceed  a  priori  and  define 
the  line  of  least  resistance  as  the  line  that  is  followed,  the 
physical  law  must  also  hold  good  in  the  mental  sphere. 
But  we  feel,  in  all  hard  cases  of  volition,  as  if  the  line 
taken,  when  the  rarer  and  more  ideal  motives  prevail,  were 
the  line  of  greater  resistance,  and  as  if  the  line  of  coarser 
motivation  were  the  more  pervious  and  easy  one,  even  at 
the  very  moment  when  we  refuse  to  follow  it.  He  who 
under  the  surgeon's  knife  represses  cries  of  pain,  or  he 
who  exposes  himself  to  social  obloquy  for  duty's  sake,  feels 
as  if  he  were  following  the  line  of  greatest  temporary  re- 
sistance. He  speaks  of  conquering  and  overcoming  his 
impulses  and  temptations. 

But  the  sluggard,  the  drunkard,  the  coward,  never  talk 
of  their  conduct  in  that  way,  or  say  they  resist  their  energy, 
overcome  their  sobriety,  conquer  their  courage,  and  so 
forth.  If  in  general  we  class  all  springs  of  action  as  pro- 
pensities on  the  one  hand  and  ideals  on  the  other,  the  sen- 
sualist never  says  of  his  behavior  that  it  results  from  a 
victory  over  his  ideals,  but  the  moralist  always  speaks  of 
his  as  a  victory  over  his  propensities.  The  sensualist  uses 
terms  of  inactivity,  says  he  forgets  his  ideals,  is  deaf  to 
duty,  and  so  forth;  which  terms  seem  to  imply  that  the 
ideal  motives  per  se  can  be  annulled  without  energy  or 
effort,  and  that  the  strongest  mere  traction  lies  in  the  line 
of  the  propensities.  The  ideal  impulse  appears,  in  com- 
parison with  this,  a  still  small  voice  which  must,  lie  artifi- 
cially reinforced  to  prevail.  Effort  is  what  reinforces  it, 
making  things  seem  as  if,  while  the  force  of  propensity 


444  PSYCHOLOGY. 

were  essentially  a  fixed  quantity,  the  ideal  force  might  be 
of  various  amount,  lint  what  determines  the  amount  of 
the  effori  when,  by  its  aid,  an  ideal  motive  becomes  vic- 
torious over  a  great  sensual  resistance?  The  very  great- 
ness of  the  resistance  itself.  If  the  sensual  propensity  is 
small,  the  effort  is  small.  The  latter  is  made  great  by  the 
presence  of  a  great  antagonist  to  overcome.  And  if  a  brief 
definition  of  ideal  or  moral  action  were  required,  none 
could  be  given  which  would  better  fit  the  appearances  than 
this:  It  is  action  in  the  line  of  the  greatest  resistance. 

The  facts  may  be  most  briefly  symbolized  thus,  P  stand- 
ing for  the  propensity,  I  for  the  ideal  impulse,  and  E  for 
the  effort: 

I  per  se  <  P. 

I  +  E  >  P. 

In  other  words,  if  E  adds  itself  to  I,  P  immediately 
offers  the  least  resistance,  and  motion  occurs  in  spite  of  it. 

But  the  E  does  not  seem  to  form  an  integral  part  of  the 
I.  It  appears  adventitious  and  indeterminate  in  advance. 
We  can  make  more  or  less  as  we  please,  and  if  we  make 
enough  we  can  convert  the  greatest  mental  resistance  into 
the  least.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  impression  which  the  facts 
spontaneously  produce  upon  us.  But  we  will  not  discuss 
the  truth  of  this  impression  at  present;  let  us  rather  con- 
tinue our  descriptive  detail. 

Pleasure  and  Pain  as  Springs  of  Action. — Objects  and 
thoughts  of  objects  start  our  action,  but  the  pleasures  and 
pains  which  action  brings  modify  its  course  and  regulate 
it;  and  later  the  thoughts  of  the  pleasures  and  the  pains 
acquire  themselves  impulsive  and  inhibitive  power.  Not 
that  the  thought  of  a  pleasure  need  be  itself  a  pleasure, 
usually  it  is  the  reverse — nessun  maggior  dolore — as  Dante 
9ays — and  not  that  the  thought  of  pain  need  be  a  pain,  for, 
ie  Homer  says,  "griefs  are  often  afterwards  an  entertain- 
ment." But  as  present  pleasures  are  tremendous  rein- 
forcers,  and  present  pains  tremendous  inhibitors  of  what- 


WILL.  44/> 

ever  action  leads  to  them,  so  the  thoughts  of  pleasures  and 
pains  take  rank  amongst  the  thoughts  which  have  most 
impulsive  and  inhibitive  power.  The  precise  relation 
which  these  thoughts  hold  to  other  thoughts  is  thus  a 
matter  demanding  some  attention. 

If  a  movement  feels  agreeable,  we  repeat  and  repeat  it 
as  long  as  the  pleasure  lasts.  If  it  hurts  us,  our  muscular 
contractions  at  the  instant  stop.  So  complete  is  the  inhi- 
bition in  this  latter  case  that  it  is  almost  impossible  for  a 
man  to  cut  or  mutilate  himself  slowly  and  deliberately — 
his  hand  invincibly  refusing  to  bring  on  the  pain.  And 
there  are  many  pleasures  which,  when  once  we  have  begun 
to  taste  them,  make  it  all  but  obligatory  to  keep  up  the 
activity  to  which  they  are  due.  So  widespread  and  search- 
ing is  this  influence  of  pleasures  and  pains  upon  our  move- 
ments that  a  premature  philosophy  has  decided  that  these 
are  our  only  spurs  to  action,  and  that  wherever  they  seem 
to  be  absent,  it  is  only  because  they  are  so  far  on  among 
the  'remoter'  images  that  prompt  the  action  that  they  are 
overlooked. 

This  is  a  great  mistake,  however.  Important  as  is  the 
influence  of  pleasures  and  pains  upon  our  movements,  they 
are  far  from  being  our  only  stimuli.  With  the  manifesta- 
tions of  instinct  and  emotional  expression,  for  example 
they  have  absolutely  nothing  to  do.  Who  smiles  for  the 
pleasure  of  the  smiling,  or  frowns  for  the  pleasure  of  the 
frown  ?  Who  blushes  to  escape  the  discomfort  of  not 
blushing?  Or  who  in  anger,  grief,  or  fear  is  actuated  to 
the  movements  which  he  makes  by  the  pleasures  which 
they  yield  ?  In  all  these  cases  the  movements  are  dis- 
charged fatally  by  the  vis  a  tergo  which  the  stimulus 
exerts  upon  a  nervous  system  framed  to  respond  in  just 
that  way.  The  objects  of  our  rage,  love,  or  terror,  the 
occasions  of  our  tears  and  smiles,  whether  they  be  preset 
to  our  senses,  or  whether  they  be  merely  represented  ir 
idea,  have  this  peculiar  sort  of  impulsive  power.     Th* 


446  P8YCH0L0QY. 

impulsive  quality  of  mental  states  is  an  attribute  behind 
which  we  cannot  go.  Some  states  of  mind  have  more  of  it 
than  others,  some  have  it  in  this  direction  and  some  in 
that.  Feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain  have  it,  and  percep- 
tions and  imaginations  of  fact  have  it,  but  neither  have  it 
exclusively  or  peculiarly.  It  is  of  the  essence  of  all  con- 
sciousness (or  of  the  neural  process  which  underlies  it)  to 
instigate  movement  of  some  sort.  That  with  one  creature 
and  object  it  should  be  of  one  sort,  with  others  of  another 
sort,  is  a  problem  for  evolutionary  history  to  explain. 
However  the  actual  impulsions  may  have  arisen,  they  must 
now  be  described  as  they  exist;  and  those  persons  obey  a 
curiously  narrow  Ideological  superstition  who  think  them- 
selves bound  to  interpret  them  in  every  instance  as  effects 
of  the  secret  solicitancy  of  pleasure  and  repugnancy  of 
pain.  If  the  thought  of  pleasure  can  impel  to  action, 
surely  other  thoughts  may.  Experience  only  can  decide 
which  thoughts  do.  The  chapters  on  Instinct  and  Emo- 
tion have  shown  us  that  their  name  is  legion;  and  with 
this  verdict  we  ought  to  remain  contented,  and  not  seek 
an  illusory  simplification  at  the  cost  of  half  the  facts. 

If  in  these  our  first  acts  pleasures  and  pains  bear  no 
part,  as  little  do  they  bear  in  our  last  acts,  or  those  arti- 
ficially acquired  performances  which  have  become  habitual. 
All  the  daily  routine  of  life,  our  dressing  and  undressing, 
the  coming  and  going  from  our  work  or  carrying  through 
of  its  various  operations,  is  utterly  without  mental  refer- 
ence to  pleasure  and  pain,  except  under  rarely  realized 
conditions.  It  is  ideo-motor  action.  As  I  do  not  breathe 
to]  the  pleasure  of  the  breathing,  but  simply  find  that  I 
am  breathing,  so  I  do  not  write  for  the  pleasure  of  the 
writing,  but  simply  because  I  have  once  begun,  and  being 
in  a  state  of  intellectual  excitement  which  keeps  venting 
itself  iii  that  way,  find  that  I  am  writing  still.  Who  will 
pretend  that  when  he  idly  fingers  his  knife-handle  at  the 
table,  it  is  for  the  Bake  of  any  pleasure  which  it  gives  him, 
or  pain  which  he  thereby  avoids  ?     We  do  all  these  things 


WILL.  447 

because  at  the  moment  we  cannot  help  it ;  our  nervous 
systems  are  so  shaped  that  they  overflow  in  just  that  way; 
and  for  many  of  our  idle  or  purely  '  nervous '  and  fidgety 
performances  we  can  assign  absolutely  no  reason  at  all. 

Or  what  shall  be  said  of  a  shv  and  unsociable  man  who 
receives  point-blank  an  invitation  to  a  small  party  ?  The 
thing  is  to  him  an  abomination;  but  your  presence  exerts 
a  compulsion  on  him,  he  can  think  of  no  excuse,  and  so 
says  yes,  cursing  himself  the  while  for  what  he  does.  He 
is  unusually  sui  compos  who  does  not  every  week  of  his 
life  fall  into  some  such  blundering  act  as  this.  Such  in- 
stances of  voluntas  invito,  show  not  only  that  our  acts 
cannot  all  be  conceived  as  effects  of  represented  pleasure, 
but  that  they  cannot  even  be  classed  as  cases  of  repre- 
sented good.  The  class  '  goods '  contains  many  more  gen- 
erally influential  motives  to  action  than  the  class  '  pleas- 
ants.'  But  almost  as  little  as  under  the  form  of  pleasures 
do  our  acts  invariably  appear  to  us  under  the  form  of 
goods.  All  diseased  impulses  and  pathological  fixed  ideas 
are  instances  to  the  contrary.  It  is  the  very  badness  of 
the  act  that  gives  it  then  its  vertiginous  fascination. 
Remove  the  prohibition,  and  the  attraction  stops.  In  my 
university  days  a  student  threw  himself  from  an  upper 
entry  window  of  one  of  the  college  buildings  and  was 
nearly  killed.  Another  student,  a  friend  of  my  own,  had 
to  pass  the  window  daily  in  coming  and  going  from  his 
room,  and  experienced  a  dreadful  temptation  to  imitate 
the  deed.  Being  a  Catholic,  he  told  his  director,  who  said, 
'  All  right  !  if  you  must,  you  must,'  and  added,  '  Go  ahead 
and  do  it,'  thereby  instantly  quenching  his  desire.  This 
director  knew  how  to  minister  to  a  mind  diseased.  But 
we  need  not  go  to  minds  diseased  for  examples  of  the  occa- 
sional tempting-power  of  simple  badness  and  unpleasant- 
ness as  such.  Every  one  who  has  a  wound  or  hurt  any- 
where, a  sore  tooth,  e.g.,  will  ever  and  anon  press  it  just  to 
bring  out  the  pain.  If  we  are  near  a  new  sort  of  stink,  we 
must  sniff  it  again  just  to  verify  once  more  how  bad  it  is. 


448  PSYCHOLOGY. 

This  very  day  I  have  been  repeating  over  and  over  to 
myself  ;i  verbal  jingle  whose  mawkish  silliness  was  the 
secret  of  its  haunting  power.  I  loathed  yet  could  not 
banish  it. 

What  holds  attention  determines  action.  If  one  must 
have  a  single  name  for  the  condition  upon  which  the  im- 
pulsive and  inhibitive  quality  of  objects  depends,  one  had 
better  call  it  their  interest.  'The  interesting'  is  a  title 
which  covers  not  only  the  pleasant  and  the  painful,  but 
also  the  morbidly  fascinating,  the  tediously  haunting,  and 
even  the  simply  habitual,  inasmuch  as  the  attention  usually 
travels  on  habitual  lines,  and  what-we-attend-to  and  what- 
interests-us  are  synonymous  terms.  It  seems  as  if  we 
ought  to  look  for  the  secret  of  an  idea's  impulsiveness,  not 
in  any  peculiar  relations  which  it  may  have  with  paths  of 
motor  discharge, — for  all  ideas  have  relations  Avith  some 
such  paths, — but  rather  in  a  preliminary  phenomenon,  the 
urgency,  namely,  with  which  it  is  able  to  compel  attention 
and  do  initiate  in  consciousness.  Let  it  once  so  dominate, 
let  no  other  ideas  succeed  in  displacing  it,  and  whatever 
motor  effects  belong  to  it  by  nature  will  inevitably  occur 
— its  impulsion,  in  short,  will  be  given  to  boot,  and  will 
manifest  itself  as  a  matter  of  course.  This  is  what  we 
have  seen  in  instinct,  in  emotion,  in  common  idco-motor 
action,  in  hypnotic  suggestion,  in  morbid  impulsion,  and 
in  voluntas  invita, — the  impelling  idea  is  simply  the 
one  which  possesses  the  attention.  It  is  the  same  where 
pleasure  and  pain  are  the  motor  spurs — they  drive  other 
thoughts  from  consciousness  at  the  same  time  that  they 
instigate  their  own  characteristic  '  volitional '  effects.  And 
this  is  also  what  happens  at  the  moment  of  the  fiat,  in  all 
the  five  types  of  'decision'  which  we  have  described.  In 
short,  one  does  not  see  any  case  in  which  the  steadfast 
occupancy  of  consciousness  does  not  appear  to  be  the  prime 
condition  of  impulsive  power.  It  is  still  more  obviouslv 
the  prime  condition  of  inhibitive  power.  What  checks 
our  impulses  is  the  mere  thinking  of  reasons  to  the  con- 


WILL.  449 

trary — it  is  their  bare  presence  to  the  mind  which  gives 
the  veto,  and  makes  acts,  otherwise  seductive,  impossible 
to  perform.  If  we  could  only  forget  our  scruples,  our 
doubts,  our  fears,  what  exultant  energy  we  should  for  a 
while  display! 

Will  is  a  relation  between  the  mind  and  its  '  ideas.'     In 
closing  in,  therefore,  after  all  these  preliminaries,  upon 
the  more  intimate   nature  of  the  volitional  process,  we 
find  ourselves  driven  more  and  more  exclusively  to  con- 
sider the  conditions  which  make  ideas  prevail  in  the  mind. 
With  the  prevalence,  once  there  as  a  fact,  of  the  motive 
idea,  the  psychology  of  volition  properly  stops.     The  move- 
ments which  ensue  are  exclusively  physiological  phenomena, 
following  according  to  physiological  laws  upon  the  neural 
events  to  which  the  idea  corresponds.     The  willing  termi- 
nates with  the  prevalence  of  the  idea;  and  whether  the 
act  then  follows  or  not  is  a  matter  quite  immaterial,  so  far 
as  the  willing  itself  goes.     I  will  to  write,  and  the  act  fol- 
lows.    I  will  to  sneeze,  and  it  does  not.     I  will  that  the 
distant  table  slide  over  the  floor  towards  me;  it  also  does 
not.     My  willing  representation  can  no  more  instigate  my 
sneezing-centre  than  it  can  instigate  the  table  to  activ- 
ity.    But  in  both  cases  it  is  as  true  and  good  willing  as 
it  was  when  I  willed  to  write.     In  a  word,  volition  is  a 
psychic  or  moral  fact  pure  and  simple,  and  is  absolutely 
completed  when  the  stable  state  of  the  idea  is  there.     The 
supervention  of  motion  is  a  supernumerary  phenomenon 
depending  on  executive  ganglia  whose  function  lies  out- 
side the  mind.     If  the  ganglia  work  duly,  the  act  occurs 
perfectly.     If  they  work,  but  work  wrongly,  we  have  St. 
Vitus's  dance,  locomotor  ataxy,  motor  aphasia,  or  minor 
degrees  of  awkwardness.     If  they  don't  work  at  all,  the 
act  fails  altogether,  and  we  say  the  man  is  paralyzed.     He 
may  make   a  tremendous  effort,  and  contract   the  other 
muscles  of  the  body,  but  the  paralyzed  limb  fails  to  move. 
In  all  these  cases,  however,  the  volition  considered  as  a 
psychic  process  is  intact. 


450  PSYCHOLOGY. 

Volitional  effort  is  effort  of  attention.  We  thus  find  that 
we  reach  the  heart  of  our  inquiry  into  volition  when  we 
ask  by  what  process  it  is  that  the  thought.of  any  given  ac- 
tion comes  to  prevail  stably  in  the  mind.  Where  thoughts 
prevail  without  effort,  we  have  sufficiently  studied  in  the 
several  chapters  on  Sensation,  Association,  and  Attention, 
the  laws  of  their  advent  hefore  consciousness  and  of  their 
stay.  We  shall  not  go  over  that  ground  again,  for  we  know 
that  interest  and  association  are  the  words,  let  their  worth 
he  what  it  may,  on  which  our  explanations  must  perforce 
rely.  Where,  on  the  other  hand,  the  prevalence  of  the 
thought  is  accompanied  by  the  phenomenon  of  effort,  the 
case  is  much  less  clear.  Already  in  the  chapter  on  Atten- 
tion we  postponed  the  final  consideration  of  voluntary 
attention  with  effort  to  a  later  place.  We  have  now 
brought  things  to  a  point  at  which  we  see  that  attention 
with  effort  is  all  that  any  case  of  volition  implies.  The 
essential  achievement  of  the  will,  in  short,  when  it  is  most 
'voluntary,'  is  to  attend  to  a  difficult  object  and  hold  it 
fast  hefore  the  mind,  The  so-doing  is  the  fiat;  and  it  is  a 
mere  physiological  incident  that  when  the  object  is  thus 
attended  to,  immediate  motor  consequences  should  ensue. 

Effort  of  attention  is  thus  the  essential  phenomenon  of 
will.*      Every  reader  must  know  by  his  own  experience 

♦This  volitional  effort  pure  and  simple  must  be  carefully  distin- 
guished from  the  muscular  effort  with  which  it  is  usually  confounded. 
The  latter  consists  of  all  those  peripheral  feelings  to  which  a  muscu- 
lar 'exertion'  may  give  rise.  These  feelings,  whenever  they  are 
massive  and  the  body  is  not  'fresh,'  are  rather  disagreeable,  espe- 
cially when  accompanied  by  stopped  breath,  congested  head,  bruised 
skin  of  fingers,  toes,  or  shoulders,  and  strained  joints.  And  it  is  only 
as  thu«  disagreeable  that  the  mind  must  make  its  volitional  effort  in 
stably  representing  their  reality  and  consequently  bringing  it  about. 
That  they  happen  to  be  made  real  by  muscular  activity  is  a  purely 
accidental  circumstance.  There  are  instances  where  the  fiat  demands 
great  volitional  effort  though  the  muscular  exertion  be  insignificant, 
e  g.  the  getting  out  of  bed  and  bathing  one's  self  on  a  cold  morning. 
A^ain,  a  soldier  standing  still  to  be  fired  at  expects  disagreeable  sen- 


WILL.  451 

that  this  is  so,  for  every  reader  must  have  felt  some  fiery 
passion's  grasp.  What  constitutes  the  difficulty  for  a  man 
laboring  under  an  unwise  passion  of  acting  as  if  the  pas- 
sion were  wise  ?  Certainly  there  is  no  physical  difficulty. 
It  is  as  easy  physically  to  avoid  a  fight  as  to  begin  one,  to 
pocket  one's  money  as  to  squander  it  on  one's  cupidities, 
to  walk  away  from  as  towards  a  coquette's  door.  The  dif- 
ficulty is  mental :  it  is  that  of  getting  the  idea  of  the  wise 
action  to  stay  before  our  mind  at  all.  When  any  strong 
emotional  state  whatever  is  upon  us,  the  tendency  is  for  no 
images  but  such  as  are  congruous  with  it  to  come  up.  If 
others  by  chance  offer  themselves,  they  are  instantly  smoth- 
ered and  crowded  out.  If  we  be  joyous,  we  cannot  keep 
thinking  of  those  uncertainties  and  risks  of  failure  which 
abound  upon  our  path;  if  lugubrious,  we  cannot  think  of 
new  triumphs,  travels,  loves,  and  joys;  nor  if  vengeful,  of 
our  oppressor's  community  of  nature  with  ourselves.  The 
cooling  advice  which  we  get  from  others  when  the  fever- 
fit  is  on  us  is  the  most  jarring  and  exasperating  thing  in 
life.  Reply  we  cannot,  so  we  get  angry ;  for  by  a  sort  of 
self-preserving  instinct  which  our  passion  has,  it  feels  that 
tnese  chill  objects,  if  they  once  but  gain  a  lodgment,  will 
work  and  work  until  they  have  frozen  the  very  vital  spark 
from  out  of  all  our  mood  and  brought  our  airy  castles  in 
ruin  to  the  ground.  Such  is  the  inevitable  effect  of  rea- 
sonable ideas  over  others — if  they  can  once  get  a  quiet  hear- 
ing; and  passion's  cue  accordingly  is  always  and  every- 
where to  prevent  their  still  small  voice  from  being  heard 
at  all.  "Let  me  not  think  of  that!  Don't  speak  to  me 
of  that!"  This  is  the  sudden  cry  of  all  those  who  in  a 
passion  perceive  some  sobering  considerations  about  to 
check  them  in  mid-career.  There  is  something  so  icy  in 
'  this  cold-water  bath,  something  which  seems  so  hostile  to 


sations  from  his  muscular  passivity.  The  action  of  his  will,  in  sus 
taining  the  expectation,  is  identical  with  that  required  for  a  painful 
muscular  effort.     What  is  hard  for  both  is  facing  an  idea  as  real. 


452  FSYCnOLOGY. 

the  movement  of  our  life,  so  purely  negative,  in  Keason, 
when  she  lays  her  corpse-like  finger  on  our  heart  and  says, 
"Halt!  give  up!  leave  off!  go  hack!  sit  down!"  that  it  is 
no  wonder  that  to  most  men  the  steadying  influence  seems, 
for  the  time  heing,  a  very  minister  of  death. 

The  strong-willed  man,  however,  is  the  man  who  hears 
the  still  small  voice  unflinchingly,  and  v. ho,  when  the 
1 1  rath-bringing  consideration  comes,  looks  at  its  face,  con- 
sents to  its  presence,  clings  to  it,  affirms  it,  and  holds  it 
East,  in  spite  of  the  host  of  exciting  mental  images  which 
rise  in  revolt  against  it  and  would  expel  it  from  the  mind. 
Sustained  in  this  way  by  a  resolute  effort  of  attention,  the 
difficult  object  erelong  begins  to  call  up  its  own  congeners 
and  associates  and  ends  by  changing  the  disposition  of  the 
man's  consciousness  altogether.  And  with  his  conscious- 
ness his  action  changes,  for  the  new  object,  once  stably  in 
possession  of  the  field  of  his  thoughts,  infallibly  produces 
its  own  motor  effects.  The  difficulty  lies  in  the  gaining 
possession  of  that  field.  Though  the  spontaneous  drift  of 
thought  is  all  the  other  way,  the  attention  must  be  kept 
strained  on  that  one  object  until  at  last  it  grows,  so  as  to 
maintain  itself  before  the  mind  with  ease.  This  strain  of 
i  lie  attention  is  the  fundamental  act  of  will.  And  the 
will's  work  is  in  most  cases  practically  ended  when  the 
liare  presence  to  our  thought  of  the  naturally  unwelcome 
object  has  been  secured.  For  the  mysterious  tie  between 
the  thought  and  the  motor  centres  next  comes  into  play, 
and,  in  a  way  which  we  cannot  even  guess  at,  the  obedience 
of  the  bodilv  organs  follows  as  a  matter  of  course. 

In  all  this  one  sees  how  the  immediate  point  of  appli- 
cation of  the  volitional  effort  lies  exclusively  in  the  mental 
world.  The  whole  drama  is  a  mental  drama.  The  whole 
difficulty  is  a  mental  difficulty,  a  difficulty  with  an  ideal 
object  of  our  thought.  It  is,  in  one  word,  an  idea  to 
which  our  will  applies  itself,  an  idea  which  if  we  let  it  go 
would  slip  away,  but  which  we  will  not  let  go.  Consent  to 
the  idea's  undivided  presence,  this  is  e fort's  sole  achieve- 


WILL.  453 

ment.  Its  only  function  is  to  get  this  feeling  of  consent 
into  the  mind.  And  for  this  there  is  but  one  way.  The 
idea  to  be  consented  to  must  be  kept  from  nickering  and 
going  out.  It  must  be  held  steadily  before  the  mind  until 
it  fills  the  mind.  Such  filling  of  the  mind  by  an  idea, 
with  its  congruous  associates,  is  consent  to  the  idea  and 
to  the  fact  which  the  idea  represents.  If  the  idea  be  that, 
cr  include  that,  of  a  bodily  movement  of  our  own,  then  we 
call  the  consent  thus  laboriously  gained  a  motor  volition. 
For  Nature  here  'backs'  us  instantaneously  and  follows 
up  our  inward  willingness  by  outward  changes  on  her  own 
part.  She  does  this  in  no  other  instance.  Pity  she  should 
not  have  been  more  generous,  nor  made  a  world  whose 
other  parts  were  as  immediately  subject  to  our  will  ! 

On  page  430,  in  describing  the  '  reasonable  type '  of  de- 
cision, it  was  said  that  it  usually  came  when  the  right  con- 
ception of  the  case  was  found.  Where,  however,  the  right 
conception  is  an  anti-impulsive  one,  the  whole  intellectual 
ingenuity  of  the  man  usually  goes  to  work  to  crowd  it  out 
of  sight,  and  to  find  for  the  emergency  names  by  the  help 
of  which  the  dispositions  of  the  moment  may  sound  sanc- 
tified, and  sloth  or  passion  may  reign  unchecked.  How 
many  excuses  does  the  drunkard  find  when  each  new 
temptation  comes!  It  is  a  new  brand  of  liquor  which  the 
interests  of  intellectual  culture  in  such  matters  oblige  him 
to  test;  moreover  it  is  poured  out  and  it  is  sin  to  waste  it; 
also  others  are  drinking  and  it  would  be  churlishness  to 
refuse.  Or  it  is  but  to  enable  him  to  sleep,  or  just  to  get 
through  this  job  of  work;  or  it  isn't  drinking,  it  is  be- 
cause he  feels  so  cold;  or  it  is  Christmas-day;  or  it  is  a 
means  of  stimulating  him  to  make  a  more  powerful  resolu- 
tion in  favor  of  abstinence  than  any  he  has  hitherto  made; 
or  it  is  just  this  once,  and  once  doesn't  count,  etc.,  etc.,  ad 
libitum — it  is,  in  fact,  anything  you  like  except  being  a 
drunkard.  That  is  the  conception  that  will  not  stay  be- 
fore the  poor  soul's  attention.  But  if  he  once  gets  able  to 
pick  out  that  way  of  conceiving,  from  all  the  other  poss^ 


454  PSYCHOLOGY. 

ble  ways  of  conceiving  the  various  opportunities  which 
occur,  it*  through  thick  and  thin  he  holds  to  it  that  this  is 
being  a  drunkard  and  is  nothing  else,  he  is  not  likely  to 
remain  one  long.  The  effort  by  which  he  succeeds  in 
keeping  the  right  name  unwaveringly  present  to  his  mind 
proves  to  be  his  saving  moral  act. 

Everywhere,  then,  the  function  of  the  effort  is  the  same: 
to  keep  affirming  and  adopting  a  thought  which,  if  left  to 
itself,  would  Blip  away.  It  may  be  cold  and  flat  when  the 
-]H,ntaneous  mental  drift  is  towards  excitement,  or  great 
and  arduous  when  the  spontaneous  drift  is  towards  repose. 
In  the  one  case  the  effort  has  to  inhibit  an  explosive,  in 
the  other  to  arouse  an  obstructed  will.  The  exhausted 
sailor  on  a  wreck  lias  a  will  which  is  obstructed.  One  of 
his  ideas  is  that  of  his  sore  hands,  of  the  nameless  exhaus- 
tion of  his  whole  frame  which  the  act  of  farther  pumping 
involves,  and  of  the  deliciousness  of  sinking  into  sleep. 
The  other  is  that  of  the  hungry  sea  ingulfing  him. 
"Bather  the  aching  toil!"  he  says;  and  it  becomes  reality 
then,  in  spite  of  the  inhibiting  influence  of  the  relatively 
luxurious  sensations  which  he  gets  from  lying  still.  Often 
again  it  may  be  the  thought  of  sleep  and  what  leads  to 
it  which  is  the  hard  one  to  keep  before  the  mind.  If  a 
patient  afflicted  with  insomnia  can  only  control  the  whirl- 
ing chase  of  his  ideas  so  far  as  to  think  of  nothing  at 
all  (which  can  be  done),  or  so  far  as  to  imagine  one  letter 
after  another  of  a  verse  of  Scripture  or  poetry  spelt  slowly 
and  monotonously  out,  it  is  almost  certain  that  here,  too, 
specific  bodily  effects  will  follow,  and  that  sleep  will  come. 
The  trouble  is  to  keep  the  mind  upon  a  train  of  objects 
naturally  so  insipid.  To  sustain  a  representation,  to 
tti ink,  is,  in  short,  the  only  moral  act,  for  the  impulsive 
and  the  obstructed,  for  sane  and  lunatics  alike.  Most 
maniacs  know  their  thoughts  to  be  crazy,  but  find  them 
too  pressing  to  be  withstood.  Compared  with  them  the 
sane  truths  are  so  deadly  sober,  so  cadaverous,  that  the 
lunatic  cannot   bear   to   look   them  in  the  face  and  say, 


WILL  455 

"Let  these  alone  be  my  reality!"     But  with  sufficient 
effort,  as  Dr.  Wigan  says,  "  Such  a  man  can  for  a  time  wind 
himself  up,  as  it  were,  and  determine  that  the  notions  of  the 
disordered  brain  shall  not  be  manifested.     Many  instances 
are  on  record  similar  to  that  told  by  Pinel,  where  an  inmate 
of  the  Bicetre,  having  stood  a  long  cross-examination,  and 
given  every  mark  of  restored  reason,  signed  his  name  to 
the   paper   authorizing  his  discharge  'Jesus  Christ/  and 
then  w£nt  off   into  all  the  vagaries  connected  with  that 
delusion.     In  the  phraseology  of  the  gentleman  whose  case 
is  related  in  an  early  part  of  this  [Wigan's]  work  he  had 
'held  himself  tight  '  during  the  examination  in  order  to 
attain  his  object;  this  once  accomplished  he  'let  himself 
down'  again,  and,  if  even  conscious  of  his  delusion,  could 
not  control  iT.     I  have  observed  with  such  persons  that  it 
requires  a  considerable  time  to  wind  themselves  up  to  the 
pitch  of  complete  self-control,  that  the  effort  is  a  painful 
tension  of  the  mind.  .  .  .  When  thrown  off  their  guard  by 
any  accidental  remark  or  worn  out  by  the  length  of  the 
examination,  they   let   themselves  go,   and    cannot  gather 
themselves  up  again  without  preparation." 

To  sum  it  all  up  in  a  word,  the  terminus  of  the  psycho- 
logical process  in  volition,  the  paint  to  which  the  will  is 
directly  applied,  is  always  an  idea.  There  are  at  all  times 
some  ideas  from  which  Ave  shy  away  like  frightened  horses 
the  moment  we  get  a  glimpse  of  their  forbidding  profile 
upon  the  threshold  of  our  thought.  The  only  resistance 
which  our  will  can  possibly  experience  is  the  resistance 
which  stich  an  idea  offers  to  being  attended  to  at  all.  To 
attend  to  it  is  the  volitional  act,  and  the  only  inward 
volitional  act  which  we  ever  perform. 

The  Question  of  'Free-will.' — As  was  remarked  on  p.  443, 
in  the  experience  of  effort  we  feel  as  if  we  might  make 
more  or  less  than  we  actually  at  any  moment  are  making. 

The  effort  appears,  in  other  words,  not  as  a  fixed  reaction 
on  our  part  which  the  object  that  resists  us  necessarily 
calls  forth,  but  as  what  the  mathematicians  call  an  'inde- 


456  PSYCHOLOGY. 

pendent  variable'  amongst  the  fixed  data  of  the  case,  our 
motives,  character,  etc.  If  it  be  really  so,  if  the  amount  of 
our  effort  is  not  a  determinate  function  of  those  other  data, 
then,  in  common  parlance,  our  nulls  are  free.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  the  amount  of  effort  be  a  fixed  function,  so  that 
whatever  object  at  any  time  fills  our  consciousness  was 
from  eternity  bound  to  fill  it-then  and  there,  and  compel 
from  as  the  exact  effort,  neither  more  nor  less,  which  we 
bestow  upon  it, — then  our  wills  are  not  free,  and  all  our 
acts  are  foreordained.  The  question  of  fact  in  the  free- 
will controversy  is  thus  extremely  simple.  It  relates  solely 
to  the  amount  of  effort  of  attention  which  toe  can  at  any 
time  put  forth.  Are  the  duration  and  intensity  of  this 
effort  fixed  functions  of  the'object,  or  are  they  not  ?  Now, 
as  I  just  said,  it  seems  as  if  we  might  exert  more  or  less 
in  any  given  case.  When  a  man  has  let  his  thoughts  go 
for  days  and  weeks  until  at  last  they  culminate  in  some 
particularly  dirty  or  cowardly  or  cruel  act,  it  is  hard  to 
persuade  him,  in  the  midst  of  his  remorse,  that  he  might 
not  have  reined  them  in;  hard  to  make  him  believe  that 
this  whole  goodly  universe  (which  his  act  so  jars  upon) 
required  and  exacted  it  of  him  at  that  fatal  moment,  and 
from  eternity  made  aught  else  impossible.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  is  the  certainty  that  all  his  effortless  voli- 
tions  are  resultants  of  interests  and  associations  whose 
strength  and  sequence  are  mechanically  determined  by  the 
structure  of  that  physical  mass,  his  brain;  and  the  general 
continuity  of  things  and  the  monistic  conception  of  the 
world  may  lead  one  irresistibly  to  postulate  that  a  little 
fact  like  effort  can  form  no  real  exception  to  the  over- 
whelming reign  of  deterministic  law.  Even  in  effortless 
volition  we  have  the  consciousness  of  the  alternative  being 
also  possible.  This  is  surely  a  delusion  here;  why  is  it 
not  a  delusion  everywhere  ? 

The  fact  is  that  the  question  of  free-will  is  insoluble  on 
strictly  psychologic  grounds.  After  a  certain  amount  of 
effort  of  attention  lias  been  given  to  an  idea,  it  is  man^ 


WILL.  457 

festly  impossible  to  tell  whether  either  more  or  less  of  it 
might  have  been  given  or  not.  To  tell  that,  we  should  have 
to  ascend  to  the  antecedents  of  the  effort,  and  denning  them 
with  mathematical  exactitude,  prove,  by  laws  of  which  we 
have  not  at  present  even  an  inkling,  that  the  only  amount 
of  sequent  effort  which  could  possibly  comport  with  them 
was  the  precise  amount  that  actually  came.  Such  measure- 
ments, whether  of  psychic  or  of  neural  quantities,  and  such 
deductive  reasonings  as  this  method  of  proof  implies,  will 
surely  be  forever  beyond  human  reach.  No  serious  psy- 
chologist or  physiologist  will  venture  even  to  suggest  a 
notion  of  how  they  might  be  practically  made.  Had  one 
no  motives  drawn  from  elsewhere  to  make  one  partial  to 
either  solution,  one  might  easily  leave  the  matter  unde- 
cided. But  a  psychologist  cannot  be  expected  to  be  thus 
impartial,  having  a  great  motive  in  favor  of  determinism. 
He  wants  to  build  a  Science;  and  a  Science  is  a  system  of 
fixed  relations.  Wherever  there  are  independent  variables, 
there  Science  stops.  So  far,  then,  as  our  volitions  may  be 
independent  variables,  a  scientific  psychology  must  ignore 
that  fact,  and  treat  of  them  only  so  far  as  they  are  fixed 
functions.  In  other  words,  she  must  deal  with  the  general 
laws  of  volition  exclusively;  with  the  impulsive  and  in- 
hibitory character  of  ideas;  with  the  nature  of  their 
appeals  to  the  attention;  with  the  conditions  under  which 
effort  may  arise,  etc.;  but  not  with  the  precise  amounts 
of  effort,  for  these,  if  our  wills  be  free,  are  impossible 
to  compute.  She  thus  abstracts  from  free-will,  without 
necessarily  denying  its  existence.  Practically,  however, 
such  abstraction  is  not  distinguished  from  rejection;  and 
most  actual  psychologists  have  no  hesitation  in  denying 
that  free-will  exists. 

For  ourselves,  we  can  hand  the  free-will  controversy  over 
to  metaphysics.  Psychology  will  surely  never  grow  refined 
enough  to  discover,  in  the  case  of  any  individual's  decision, 
a  discrepancy  between  her  scientific  calculations  and  the 
fact,    Her  prevision  will  never  foretell,  whether  the  effort 


4f>8  PSYCHOLOGY. 

be  completely  predestinate  or  not,  the  way  in  which  each 
individual  emergency  is  resolved.  Psychology  will  be  psy- 
chology, and  Science  science,  as  much  as  ever  (as  much 
and  no  more)  in  this  world,  whether  free-will  be  true  in  it 
or  not. 

We  can  thus  ignore  the  free-will  question  m  psychology 
As  we  said  on  p.  452,  the  operation  of  free  effort,  if  it  existed 
could  only  be  to  hold  some  one  ideal  object,  or  part  of  an 
object,  a  little  longer  or  a  little  more  intensely  before  the 
mind.  Amongst  the  alternatives  which  present  themselves 
as  genuine  possibles,  it  would  thus  make  one  effective. 
And  although  such  quickening  of  one  idea  might  be 
morally  and  historically  momentous,  yet,  if  considered 
dynamically t  it  would  be  an  operation  amongst  those 
physiological  infinitesimals  which  an  actual  science  must 
forever  neglect. 

Ethical  Importance  of  the  Phenomenon  of  Effort. — But 
whilst  eliminating  the  question  about  the  amount  of  our 
effort  as  one  Avhich  psychology  will  never  have  a  practical 
call  to  decide,  I  must  say  one  word  about  the  extraor- 
dinarily intimate  and  important  character  which  the 
phenomenon  of  effort  assumes  in  our  own  eyes  as  individ- 
ual men.  Of  course  Ave  measure  ourselves  by  many  stand- 
ards. Our  strength  and  our  intelligence,  our  wealth  and 
even  our  good  luck,  are  things  which  warm  our  heart  and 
make  us  feel  ourselves  a  match  for  life.  But  deeper  than 
all  such  things,  and  able  to  suffice  unto  itself  without  them, 
is  the  sense  of  the  amount  of  effort  which  we  can  put 
forth.  Those  are,  after  all,  but  effects,  products,  and 
reflections  of  the  outer  world  within.  But  the  effort 
seems  to  belong  to  an  altogether  different  realm,  as  if  it 
were  the  substantive  thing  which  we  are,  and  those  were 
but  externals  which  we  carry.  If  the  'searching  of  our 
heart  and  reins' be  the  purpose  of  this  human  drama,  then 
what  is  sought  seems  to  be  what  effort  we  can  make.  He 
who  can  make  none  is  but  a  shadow;  he  who  can  make 
much  is  a  hero.     The  huge  world  that  girdles  us  about 


ynLL.  459 

puts  all  sorts  of  questions  to  us,  and  tests  us  in  all  sorts  of 
ways.  Some  of  the  tests  we  meet  by  actions  that  are  easy, 
and  some  of  the  questions  we  answer  in  articulately 
formulated  words.  But  the  deepest  question  that  is  ever 
asked  admits  of  no  reply  but  the  dumb  turning  of  the  will 
and  tightening  of  our  heart-strings  as  we  say,  "  Yes,  I  will 
even  have  it  so!"  When  a  dreadful  object  is  presented,  or 
when  life  as  a  whole  turns  up  its  dark  abysses  to  our  view, 
then  the  worthless  ones  among  us  lose  their  hold  on  the 
situation  altogether,  and  either  escape  from  its  difficulties 
by  averting  their  attention,  or  if  they  cannot  do  that, 
collapse  into  yielding  masses  of  plaintiveness  and  fear. 
The  effort  required  for  facing  and  consenting  to  such 
objects  is  beyond  their  power  to  make.  But  the  heroic 
mind  does  differently.  To  it,  too,  the  objects  are  sinister 
and  dreadful,  unwelcome,  incompatible  Avith  wished-for 
things.  But  it  can  face  them  if  necessary,  without  for 
that  losing  its  hold  upon  the  rest  of  life.  The  world  thus 
finds  in  the  heroic  man  its  worthy  match  and  mate;  and 
the  effort  which  he  is  able  to  put  forth  to  hold  himself 
erect  and  keep  his  heart  unshaken  is  the  direct  measure 
of  his  worth  and  function  in  the  game  of  human  life.  He 
can  stand  this  Universe.  He  can  meet  it  and  keep  up  his 
faith  in  it  in  presence  of  those  same  features  which  lay  his 
weaker  brethren  low.  He  can  still  find  a  zest  in  it,  not  by 
*  ostrich-like  forgetfulness,'  but  by  pure  inward  willingness 
to  face  it  with  those  deterrent  objects  there.  And  hereby 
he  makes  himself  one  of  the  masters  and  the  lords  of  life. 
He  must  be  counted  with  henceforth;  he  forms  a  part  of 
human  destiny.  Neither  in  the  theoretic  nor  in  the  prac- 
tical sphere  do  we  care  for,  or  go  for  help  to,  those  who 
have  no  head  for  risks,  or  sense  for  living  on  the  perilous 
edge.  Our  religious  life  lies  more,  our  practical  life  lies 
less,  than  it  used  to,  on  the  perilous  edge.  But  just  as 
our  courage  is  so  often  a  reflex  of  another's  courage,  so  our 
faith  is  apt  to  be  a  faith  in  some  one  else's  faith.  "We 
draw  new  life  from  the  heroic  example.     The  prophet  has 


460  PSYCHOLOGY. 

drank  more  deeply  than  anyone  of  the  cup  of  bitterness, 
but  his  countenance  is  so  unshaken  and  he  speaks  such 
mighty  words  of  cheer  that  his  will  becomes  our  will,  and 
our  life  is  kindled  at  his  own. 

Thus  not  only  our  morality  but  our  religion,  so  far  as 
the  latter  is  deliberate,  depend  on  the  effort  which  we  can 
mike.  "  Will  you  or  won't  you  have  it  so?"  is  the  most 
probing  question  we  are  ever  asked;  we  are  asked  it  every 
hour  of  the  day,  and  about  the  largest  as  well  as  the 
smallest,  the  most  theoretical  as  well  as  the  most  practical, 
things.  "We  answer  by  consents  or  non-consents  and  not  by 
words.  What  wonder  that  these  dumb  responses  should 
seem  our  deepest  organs  of  communication  with  the  nature 
of  things!  What  wonder  if  the  effort  demanded  by  them 
be  the  measure  of  our  worth  as  men!  What  wonder  if  the 
amount  which  we  accord  of  it  were  the  one  strictly  un- 
derived  and  original  contribution  which  we  make  to  the 
world ! 


EPILOGUE. 

PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 

What  the  Word  Metaphysics  means. — In  the  last  chapter 
we  handed  the  question  of  free-will  over  to  'metaphysics/ 
It  would  indeed  have  been  hasty  to  settle  the  question 
absolutely,  inside  the  limits  of  psychology.  Let  psychol- 
ogy frankly  admit  that  for  her  scientific  purposes  deter- 
minism may  be  claimed,  and  no  one  can  find  fault.  If, 
then,  it  turn  out  later  that  the  claim  has  only  a  relative 
purpose,  and  may  be  crossed  by  counter-claims,  the  re- 
adjustment can  be  made.  Now  ethics  makes  a  counter- 
claim; and  the  present  writer,  for  one,  has  no  hesitation 
in  regarding  her  claim  as  the  stronger,  and  in  assuming 
that  our  wills  are  'free.'  For  him,  then,  the  determi- 
nistic assumption  of  psychology  is  merely  provisional  and 
methodological.  This  is  no  place  to  argue  the  ethical 
point;  and  I  only  mention  the  conflict  to  show  that  all 
these  special  sciences,  marked  off  for  convenience  from 
the  remaining  body  of  truth  (cf.  p.  1),  must  hold  their  as- 
sumptions and  results  subject  to  revision  in  the  light  of 
each  others'  needs.  The  forum  where  they  hold  discus- 
sion is  called  metaphysics.  Metaphysics  means  only  an 
unusually  obstinate  attempt  to  think  clearly  and  con- 
sistently. The  special  sciences  all  deal  with  data  that 
are  full  of  obscurity  and  contradiction ;  but  from  the  point 
of  view  of  their  limited  purposes  these  defects  may  be 
overlooked.  Hence  the  disparaging  use  of  the  name  meta- 
physics which  is  so  common.  To  a  man  with  a  limited 
purpose  any  discussion  that  is  over-subtle  for  that  purpose 
is  branded  as  c  metaphysical.'  A  geologist's  purposes  fall 
short  of  understanding  Time  itself.     A  mechanist  need 


462  PSYCHOLOGY. 

not  know  now  action  and  reaction  are  possible  at  all.  A 
psychologist  has  enough  to  do  without  asking  how  both 
he  and  the  mind  which  he  studios  are  able  to  take  cogni- 
zance of  the  same  outer  world.  But  it  is  obvious  that 
problems  irrelevant  from  one  standpoint  may  be  essential 
from  another.  And  as  soon  as  one's  purpose  is  the  attain- 
ment of  the  maximum  of  possible  insight  into  the  world 
as  a  whole,  the  metaphysical  puzzles  become  the  most 
argent  ones  of  all.  Psychology  contributes  to  general 
philosophy  her  full  share  of  these;  and  I  propose  in  this 
last  chapter  to  indicate  briery  which  of  them  seem  the 
more  important.     And  first,  of  the 

Relation  of  Consciousness  to  the  Brain. — "When  psychol- 
ogy is  treated  as  a  natural  science  (after  the  fashion  in 
which  it  has  been  treated  in  this  book),  'states  of  mind' 
are  taken  for  granted,  as  data  immediately  given  in  expe- 
rience; and  the  Avorking  hypothesis  (see  p.  G)  is  the  mere 
empirical  law  that  to  the  entire  state  of  the  brain  at  amy 
moment  one  unique  state  of  mind  always  'corresponds.' 
This  does  very  well  till  we  begin  to  be  metaphysical  and 
ask  ourselves  just  what  we  mean  by  such  a  word  as  'cor- 
responds.' This  notion  appears  dark  in  the  extreme,  the 
moment  we  seek  to  translate  it  into  something  more  in- 
timate than  mere  parallel  variation.  Some  think  they 
make  the  notion  of  it  clearer  by  calling  the  mental  state 
and  the  brain  the  inner  and  outer  'aspects,'  respectively,  of 
'  One  and  the  Same  Reality/  Others  consider  the  mental 
state  as  the  'reaction'  of  a  unitary  being,  the  Soul,  upon 
the  multiple  activities  which  the  brain  presents.  Others 
again  comminute  the  mystery  by  supposing  each  brain- 
cell  to  be  separately  conscious,  and  the  empirically  given 
mental  state  to  be  the  appearance  of  all  the  little  con- 
sciousnesses fused  into  one,  just  as  the  '  brain '  itself  is 
the  appearance  of  all  the  cells  together,  when  looked  at 
from  one  point  of  view. 

We  may  call  these  three  metaphysical  attempts  the 
monistic,  the  spiritualistic,  and  the  atomistic  theories  re- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  463 

spectively.  Each  has  its  difficulties,  of  which  it  seems  to 
me  that  those  of  the  spiritualistic  theory  are  logically  much 
the  least  grave.  But  the  spiritualistic  theory  is  quite  out 
of  touch  with  the  facts  of  multiple  consciousness,  alternate 
personality,  etc.  (pp.  207-214).  These  lend  themselves  more 
naturally  to  the  atomistic  formulation,  for  it  seems  easier 
to  think  of  a  lot  of  minor  consciousnesses  now  gathering 
together  into  one  large  mass,  and  now  into  several  smaller 
ones,  than  of  a  Soul  now  reacting  totally,  now  breaking 
into  several  disconnected  simultaneous  reactions.  The 
localization  of  brain-functions  also  makes  for  the  atomistic 
view.  If  in  my  experience,  say  of  a  bell,  it  is  my  occipital 
lobes  which  are  the  condition  of  its  being  seen,  and  my 
temporal  lobes  which  are  the  condition  of  its  being  heard, 
what  is  more  natural  than  to  say  that  the  former  see  it  and 
the  latter  hear  it,  and  then  '  combine  their  information  '  ? 
In  view  of  the  extreme  naturalness  of  such  a  way  of  repre- 
senting the  well-established  fact  that  the  appearance  of 
the  several  parts  of  an  object  to  consciousness  at  any  mo- 
ment does  depend  on  as  many  several  parts  of  the  brain 
being  then  active,  all  such  objections  as  were  urged,  on 
pp.  23,  57,  and  elsewhere,  to  the  notion  that  'parts'  of  con- 
sciousness can  '  combine '  will  be  rejected  as  far-fetched, 
unreal,  and  'metaphysical'  by  the  atomistic  philosopher. 
His  'purpose'  is  to  gain  a  formula  which  shall  unify 
things  in  a  natural  and  easy  manner,  and  for  such  a  pur- 
pose the  atomistic  theory  seems  expressly  made  to  his  hand. 
But  the  difficulty  with  the  problem  of  '  correspondence ' 
is  not  only  that  of  solving  it,  it  is  that  of  even  stating  it  iD 
elementary  terms. 

"  L'ombre  en  ce  lieu  s'amasse,  et  la  nuit  est  la  toute." 

Before  we  can  know  just  what  sort  of  goings-on  occur 
when  thought  corresponds  to  a  change  in  the  brain,  we 
must  know  the  subjects  of  the  goings-on.  We  must  know 
which  sort  of  mental  fact  and  which  sort  of  cerebral  fact 
are,  so  to  speak,  in  immediate  juxtaposition.     We  must 


464  PSYCHOLOGY 

find  the  minimal  mental  fact  whose  being  reposes  directly 
on  a  brain-fact;  and  we  must  similarly  rind  the  minima] 
brain-event  which  can  have  a  mental  counterpart  at  all. 
Between  the  mental  and  the  physical  minima  thus  found 
there  will  be  an  immediate  relation,  the  expression  of  which, 
if  we  had  it,  would  be  the  elementary  psycho-physic  law. 

Our  own  formula  has  escaped  the  metempiric  assump- 
tion of  psychic  atoms  by  taking  the  entire  thought  (even 
of  a  complex  object)  as  the  minimum  with  ivhich  it  deals 
on  the  mental  side,  and  the  entire  brain  as  the  minimum 
on  the  physical  side.  But  the  'entire  brain'  is  not  a  phy- 
sical fact  at  all !  It  is  nothing  but  our  name  for  the  way 
in  which  a  billion  of  molecules  arranged  in  certain  posi- 
tions may  affect  our  sense.  On  the  principles  of  the  cor- 
puscular or  mechauical  philosophy,  the  only  realities  are 
the  separate  molecules,  or  at  most  the  cells.  Their  aggre- 
gation into  a  *  brain '  is  a  fiction  of  popular  speech.  Such 
a  figment  cannot  serve  as  the  objectively  real  counterpart 
to  any  psychic  state  whatever.  Only  a  genuinely  physical 
fact  can  so  serve,  and  the  molecular  fact  is  the  only  genu- 
ine physical  fact.  Whereupon  we  seem,  if  we  are  to  have 
an  elementary  psycho-physic  law  at  all,  thrust  right  back 
upon  something  like  the  mental-atom-theory,  for  the 
molecular  fact,  being  «,n  element  of  the  'brain/  would 
seem  naturally  to  correspond,  not  to  total  thoughts,  but 
to  elements  of  thoughts.  Thus  the  real  in  psychics  seems 
to  '  correspond '  to  the  unreal  in  physics,  and  vice  versa; 
and  our  perplexity  is  extreme. 

The  Relation  of  States  of  Mind  to  their  'Objects.'— The 
perplexity  is  not  diminished  when  we  reflect  upon  our  as- 
sumption that  states  of  consciousness  can  know  (pp.  2-13). 
From  the  common-sense  point  of  view  (which  is  that  of 
all  the  natural  sciences)  knowledge  is  an  ultimate  rela- 
tion between  two  mutually  external  entities,  the  knower 
and  the  known.  The  world  first  exists,  and  then  the  states 
of  mind;  and  these  gain  a  cognizance  of  the  world  which 
gets  gradually  more  and  more  complete.     But  it  is  hard 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  465 

to  carry  through  this  simple  dualism,  for  idealistic  reflec- 
tions will  intrude.  Take  the  states  of  mind  called  pure 
sensations  (so  far  as  such  may  exist),  that  for  example  of 
blue,  whbh  we  may  get  from  looking  into  the  zenith  on  a 
clear  day.  Is  the  blue  a  determination  of  the  feeling  itself, 
or  of  its  'object'?  Shall  we  describe  the  experience  as  a 
quality  of  our  feeling  or  as  our  feeling  of  a  quality?  Or- 
dinary speech  vacillates  incessantly  on  this  point.  The 
ambiguous  word  'content'  has  been  recently  invented  in- 
stead of  'object,'  to  escape  a  decision;  for  'content'  sug- 
gests something  not  exactly  out  of  the  feeling,  nor  yet 
exactly  identical  with  the  feeling,  since  the  latter  remains 
suggested  as  the  container  or  vessel.  Yet  of  our  feelings  as 
vessels  apart  from  their  content  we  really  have  no  clear 
notion  whatever.  The  fact  is  that  such  an  experience  as 
blue,  as  it  is  immediately  given,  can  only  be  called  by  some 
such  neutral  name  as  that  of  phenomenon.  It  does  not  come 
to  us  immediately  as  a  relation  between  two  realities,  one 
mental  and  one  physical.  It  is  only  when,  still  thinking 
of  it  as  the  same  blue  (cf .  p.  239),  we  trace  relations  between 
it  and  other  things,  that  it  doubles  itself,  so  to  speak,  and 
develops  in  two  directions;  and,  taken  in  connection  with 
some  associates,  figures  as  a  physical  quality,  whilst  with 
others  it  figures  as  a  feeling  in  the  mind. 

Our  non-sensational,  or  conceptual,  states  of  mind,  on 
the  other  hand,  seem  to  obey  a  different  law.  They  pre- 
sent themselves  immediately  as  referring  beyond  them- 
selves. Although  they  also  possess  an  immediately  given 
'content,'  they  have  a  'fringe'  beyond  it  (p.  168),  and 
claim  to  'represent'  something  else  than  it.  The  'blue' 
we  have  just  spoken  of,  for  instance,  was,  substantively 
considered,  a  word;  but  it  was  a  word  with  a  meaning. 
The  quality  blue  was  the  object  of  the  thought,  the 
word  was  its  content.  The  mental  state,  in  short,  was  not 
self-sufficient  as  sensations  are,  but  expressly  pointed  at 
something  more  in  which  it  meant  to  terminate. 

But  the  moment  when,  as  in  sensations,  object  and  con- 


400  PSYCHOLOGY. 

scious  state  seem  to  be  different  ways  of  considering  one 
and  the  same  fact,  it  becomes  hard  to  justify  our  denial 
that  mental  states  consist  of  parts.  The  blue  sky,  consid- 
ered physically,  is  a  sum  of  mutually  external  parts;  why 
is  it  not  such  a  sum,  when  considered  as  a  content  of  sen- 
sation ? 

The  only  result  that  is  plain  from  all  this  is  that  the 
relations  of  the  known  and  the  knower  are  infinitely 
complicated,  and  that  a  genial,  whole-hearted,  popular- 
science  way  of  formulating  them  will  not  suffice.  The 
only  possible  path  to  understanding  them  lies  through 
metaphysical  subtlety;  and  Idealism  and  Erkenntniss- 
theone  must  say  their  say  before  the  natural-science  as- 
sumption that  thoughts  'know'  things  grows  clear. 

The  changing  character  of  consciousness  presents  an- 
other puzzle.  We  first  assumed  conscious  '  states  *  as  the 
units  with  which  psychology  deals,  and  we  said  later  that 
they  were  in  constant  change.  Yet  any  state  must  have 
a  certain  duration  to  be  effective  at  all — a  pain  which 
lasted  but  a  hundredth  of  a  second  would  practically  be 
no  pain — and  the  question  comes  up,  how  long  may  a 
state  last  and  still  be  treated  as  one  state  ?  In  time-per- 
ception for  example,  if  the  'present'  as  known  (the 
'specious  present/  as  we  called  it)  may  be  a  dozen  seconds 
long  (p.  281),  how  long  need  the  present  as  knoAver  be  ? 
That  is,  what  is  the  minimum  duration  of  the  conscious- 
ness in  which  those  twelve  seconds  can  be  apprehended  as 
just  past,  the  minimum  which  can  be  called  a  '  state/  for 
such  a  cognitive  purpose  ?  Consciousness,  as  a  process  in 
time,  offers  the  paradoxes  which  have  been  found  in  all 
3ontinuous  change.  There  are  no  'states'  in  such  a  thing, 
any  more  than  there  are  facets  in  a  circle,  or  places  where 
an  arrow  '  is '  when  it  flies.  The  vertical  raised  upon  the 
time-line  on  which  (p.  285)  we  represented  the  past  to 
be  '  projected '  at  any  given  instant  of  memory,  is  only 
an  ideal  construction.  Yet  anything  broader  than  that 
vertical  is  not,  for  the  actual  present  is  only  the  joint  be- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  467 

tween  the  past  and  future  and  has  no  breadth  of  its  own. 
Where  everything  is  change  and  process,  how  can  we  talk 
of  'state'?  Yet  how  can  we  do  without  'states/  in  de- 
scribing what  the  vehicles  of  our  knowledge  seem  to  be  ? 

States  of  consciousness  themselves  are  not  verifiable  facts. 
But  'worse  remains  behind/  Neither  common-sense,  nor 
psychology  so  far  as  it  has  yet  been  written,  has  ever 
doubted  that  the  states  of  consciousness  which  that  science 
studies  are  immediate  data  of  experience.  '  Things '  have 
been  doubted,  but  thoughts  and  feelings  have  never  been 
doubted.  The  outer  world,  but  never  the  inner  world, 
has  been  denied.  Everyone  assumes  that  we  have  direct 
introspective  acquaintance  with  our  thinking  activity  as 
such,  with  our  consciousness  as  something  inward  and 
contrasted  with  the  outer  objects  which  it  knows.  Yet  I 
must  confess  that  for  my  part  I  cannot  feel  sure  of  this 
conclusion.  Whenever  I  try  to  become  sensible  of  my 
thinking  activity  as  such,  what  I  catch  is  some  bodily 
fact,  an  impression  coming  from  my  brow,  or  head,  or 
throat,  or  nose.  It  seems  as  if  consciousness  as  an  inner 
activity  were  rather  a  postulate  than  a  sensibly  given  fact, 
the  postulate,  namely,  of  a  hnower  as  correlative  to  all 
this  known;  and  as  if  'sciousness'  might  be  a  better 
word  by  which  to  describe  it.  But  'sciousness  postulated 
as  an  hypothesis '  is  practically  a  very  different  thing  from 
'states  of  consciousness  apprehended  with  infallible  cer- 
tainty by  an  inner  sense/  For  one  thing,  it  throws  the 
question  of  who  the  knoiver  really  is  wide  open  again,  and 
makes  the  answer  which  we  gave  to  it  at  the  end  of 
Chapter  XII  a  mere  provisional  statement  from  a  popular 
and  prejudiced  point  of  view. 

Conclusion. — When,  then,  we  talk  of  'psychology  as  a 
natural  science/  we  must  not  assume  that  that  means  a 
sort  of  psychology  that  stands  at  last  on  solid  ground.  It 
means  just  the  reverse ;  it  means  a  psychology  particularly 
fragile,  and  into  which  the  waters  of  metaphysical  criticism 
leak  at  every  joint,  a  psychology  all  of  whose  elementary 


468  PSYCHOLOGY. 

assumptions  and  data  must  be  reconsidered  in  wider  con- 
nections and  translated  into  other  terms.  It  is,  in  short, 
a  phrase  of  diffidence,  and  not  of  arrogance;  and  it  is 
indeed  strange  to  hear  people  talk  triumphantly  of  'the 
New  Psychology/  aud  write  'Histories  of  Psychology/ 
when  into  the  neal  elements  and  forces  which  the  word 
covers  not  the  fiist  glimpse  of  clear  insight  exists.  A 
string  of  raw  facts;  a  little  gossip  and  wrangle  about  opin- 
ions; a  little  classification  and  generalization  on  the  mere 
descriptive  level;  a  strong  prejudice  that  we  have  states  of 
mind,  and  that  our  brain  conditions  them :  but  not  a  single 
law  in  the  sense  in  which  physics  shows  us  laws,  not  a 
single  proposition  from  which  any  consequence  can  caus- 
ally be  deduced.  We  don't  even  know  the  terms  between 
which  the  elementary  laws  would  obtain  if  we  had  them 
(p.  464).  This  is  no  science,  it  is  only  the  hope  of  a  science. 
The  matter  of  a  science  is  with  us.  Something  definite 
happens  when  to  a  certain  brain-state  a  certain  '  sciousness ' 
corresponds.  A  genuine  glimpse  into  what  it  is  would  be 
the  scientific  achievement,  before  which  all  past  achieve- 
ments would  pale.  But  at  present  psychology  is  in  the 
condition  of  physics  before  Galileo  and  the  laws  of  mo- 
tion, of  chemistry  before  Lavoisier  and  the  notion  that 
mass  is  preserved  in  all  reactions.  The  Galileo  and  the 
Lavoisier  of  psychology  will  be  famous  men  indeed  when 
they  come,  as  come  they  some  day  surely  will,  or  past 
successes  are  no  index  to  the  future.  When  they  do  come, 
however,  the  necessities  of  the  case  will  make  them  'meta- 
physical/ Meanwhile  the  best  way  in  which  we  can  facili- 
tate their  advent  is  to  understand  how  great  is  the  darkness 
in  which  we  grope,  and  never  to  forget  that  the  natural- 
science  assumptions  with  which  we  started  are  provisional 
and  revisable  things. 

THE    END. 


INDEX. 


Abstract  ideas,  240,  25;  charac- 
ters, 353;  propositions,  354 

Abstraction,  251;  see  Distraction 

Accommodation,  of  crystalline 
lens,  32;  of  ear,  49 

Acquaintance,  14 

Acquisitiveness,  407 

Action,  what  holds  attention  de- 
termines, 448 

After-images,  43-5 

AGA88IZ,  132 

Alexia,  113 

Allen,  Grant,  104 

Alternating  personality,  205  ff. 

Amidon,  132 

Analysis,  56,  248,  251,  362 

Anger,  374 

Aphasia,  108,  113;  loss  of  images 
in,  309 

Apperception,  326 

Aqueduct  of  Silvius,  80 

Araehnoid  membrane,  84 

Arbor  vitae,  86 

Aristotle,  318 

Articular  sensibility,  74 

Association,  Chapter  XVI;  the 
order  of  our  ideas,  253;  de- 
termined by  cerebral  laws,  255, 
is  not  of  ideas,  but  of  things 
thought  of,  255;  the  elementary 
principle  of,  256;  the  ultimate 
cause  of  is  habit,  256;  indeter- 
minateness  of  its  results,  258; 
total  recall,  259;  partial  recall 
and  the  law  of  interest.  261; 
frequency,  recency,  vividness. 
and  emotional  congruity  tend 
to  determine    the    object    re- 


called, 264;  focalized  recall  or 
by  similarity,  267,  364;  volun- 
tary trains  of  thought,  271; 
problems,  273 

Atomistic  theories  of  conscious- 
ness, 462 

Attention,  Chapter  XIII;  its  re- 
lation to  interest,  170;  its  physi- 
ological ground,  217;  narrow- 
ness of  field  of  consciousness, 
217;  to  how  many  things  possi- 
ble, 219;  to  simultaneous  sight 
and  sound,  220;  its  varieties, 
220;  voluntary,  224;  involun- 
tary, 220;  change  necessary  to, 
226;  its  relation  to  genius,  227; 
physiological  conditions  of, 
228;  the  sense-organ  must  be 
adapted,  229;  the  idea  of  the 
object  must  be  aroused,  232; 
pedagogic  remarks,  236;  atten- 
tion and  free-will,  237;  what 
holds  attention  determines  ac- 
tion, 448;  volitional  effort  is 
effort  of  attention,  450 

Auditory  centre  in  brain,  113 

Auditory  type  of  imagination, 
306 

Austen,  Miss,  261 

Automaton  theory,  10,  101 

Azam,  210 

Bahnsen,  147 
Bain,  145,  367,  370 
Berklev,  302,  303,  347 
Binet,  318,  332 
Black,  45-6 
Blind  Spot,  31 

469 


470 


INDEX. 


Bi.ix,  64,  68 

Blood  supply,  cerebral,  130 

Bodily  expression,  cause  of  emo- 
tions, 375 

Brack,  Jtjlia,  252 

Brain,  the  functions  of,  Chapter 
VIII,  91 

Brain,  its  connection  with  miud, 
5-7;  its  relations  to  outer  forces, 
9;  relations  of  consciousness 
to,  462 

Brain,  structure  of,  Chapter 
VII,  78  fif.;  vesicles,  78  ff.; 
dissection  of  sheep's,  81 ;  how  to 
preserve,  83 ;  functions  of, 
Chapter  VIII,  91  ff. 

Bkidgman.  Laura,  252,  308 

Bkoca,  109,  113.  115 

Broca's  convolution,  109 

Bhodhun,  46 

Brooks,  Prof.  W.  K.,  412 

Brutes,  reasoning  of,  367 

Calamus  scriptorius,  84 

Ca?ials,  semicircular,  50 

Carpenter,  223,  224 

Catteli,,  125,  126,  127 

Caudate  nucleus,  81,  86 

Centres,  nerve,  92 

Cerebellum,  its  relation  to  equi- 
librium, 76;  its  anatomy,  79, 
84 

( lerebral  laws,  of  association,  255 

Cerebral  process,  see  Neural 
Proc-  88 

Cerebrum,  see  Brain,  Hemi- 
spTu  ;•< 

Changing  character  of  conscious- 
ness, 152,  466 

<  iiarcot,  113,  309 

Choice,  see  Interest 

Coalescence  of  different  sensa- 
tions into  the  same  'thing,' 
339 

Cochlea,  51,  52 

Cognition,  see  Reasoning 

Cold,  sensations  of,  63  ff. ;  nerves 
of,  64 

Color,  40-3 

Commissures,  84 

Commissure,  middle,  88  ff. ;  an- 
terior, 88;  posterior,  88 


Comparison  of  magnitudes,  342 

Compounding  of  sensations,  23, 
43,  57 

Compound  objects,  analysis  of, 
248 

Concatenated  acts,  dependent  on 
habit,  140 

Conceiving,  mode  of,  what  is 
meant  by.  354 

Conceptions,  Chapter  XIV;  de- 
fined, 239;  their  permanence, 
239;  different  states  of  mind 
can  mean  the  same,  239;  ab- 
stract, universal,  and  problem- 
atic, 240;  the  thought  of  'the 
same'  is  not  the  same  thought 
over  again,  243 

Conceptual  order  different  from 
perceptual,  243 

Consciousness,  stream  of,  Chap- 
ter XI,  151;  four  characters 
in,  152;  personal,  152;  is  in 
constant  change,  152,  466;  same 
state  of  mind  never  occurs 
twice,  154;  consciousness  is 
continuous,  157;  substantive 
and  transitive  states  of,  160; 
interested  in  one  part  of  its  ob- 
ject more  than  another,  170; 
double  consciousness,  20(5  ff.; 
narrowness  of  field  of,  217;  re- 
lations of  to  brain,  462 

Consciousness  and  Movement, 
Chapter  XXIII;  all  conscious- 
ness is  motor,  370 

Concomitants,  law  of  varying, 
251 

Consent,  in  willing,  452 

Continuity  of  objectof  conscious- 
ness, 157 

Contrast,  25,  44-5 

Convergence  of  eyeballs,  31,  33 

Convolutions,  motor,  106 

( lorpora  fimbriate,  86 

Corpora  quadrigemma,  79.  86.  89 

(  oi  pus  albicans,  84 

Corpus  callosum,  81,  84 

Corpus  striatum,  81,  86,  108 

Cortex,  11,  note 

Cortex,  localization  in,  104;  mo 
tor  region  of,  106 

Corti's  organ,  52 


INDEX. 


471 


Cramming,  295 
Crura  of  brain,  79,84,  108 
Curiosity,  407 
Currents,  in  nerves,  10 
Czermak,  7-0 

Darwin,  388,  389 

Deafness,  mental,  113 

Delage,  76 

Deliberation,  448 

Delusions  of  insane,  207 

Dermal  senses,  60  ff . 

Determinism  and  psychology,  461 

Decision,  five  types,  429. 

Differences,  24,  directly  felt, 
245,  not  resolvable  into  com- 
position, 245;  inferred,  248 

Diffusion  of  movements,  the  law 
of,  371 

Dimension,  third,  342,  346 

Discharge,  nervous,  120 

Discord,  58 

Discrimination,  Chapter  XV,  59. 
touch,  62,  defined.  244,  condi- 
tions which  favor,  245;  sensa 
tion  of  difference,  246,  differ- 
ences inferred,  248;  analysis 
of  compound  objects,  249;  to 
be  easily  singled  out  a  quality 
should  already  be  separately 
known,  250;  dissociation  by 
varying  concomitants,  251. 
practice  improves  discrimina- 
tion, 252;  of  space,  338  See 
Difference 

'  Disparate  '  retinal  points,  35 

Dissection,  of  sheep's  brain,  81 

Distance,  as  seen,  39;  between 
members  of  series,  24 ;  in  space, 
see  Third  dimension 

Distraction,  218  ff. 

Division  of  space,  338 

Donaldson,  64 

Double  consciousness,  206  ff. 

Double  images,  36 

Double  personality,  205 

Duality  of  brain,  205 

Dumont,  135 

Dura  mater,  82 

Duration,  the  primitive  object  in 
time-perception,  280;  our  esti- 
mation of  short,  281 


Ear,  47  ff. 

Effort,  feeling  of,  434;  feels  like 
an  original  force.  442;  voli- 
tional effort  is  effort  of  atten- 
tion, 450;  ethical  importance 
of  the  phenomena  of  effort,  458 
Ego,  see  Self 
Embrvological    sketch,    Chapter 

VII,  78 
Emotion,  Chapter  XXIV;  com- 
pared    with      instincts,     373 
varieties  of,  innumerable,  374 
causes  of  varieties,  375,    381 
results  from  bodily  expression, 
375;    this  view  not  materialis- 
tic, 380;  the  subtler  emotions, 
384.    fear,  385;  genesis  of  re- 
actions, 388 
Emotional  congruity,  determines 

association,  264 
Empirical  self,  see  Self 
Emulation,  406 

End-organs,  10;  of  touch,  60;  of 
temperature.  64;    of  pressure, 
60;  of  pain,  67 
Environment.  3 
Essence  of    reason,    always  for 

subjective  interest,  358 
Essential    characters,  in  reason, 

354 
Ethical  importance  of  effort,  458 
Exaggerated  impulsion,  causes  an 

explosive  will,  439 
Exnek,  123,  281 
Experience,  218,  244 
Explosive   will,    from    defective 
inhibition,    437;     from     exag 
gerated  impulsion,  439 
Expression,     bodily,      cause    of 

emotions,  375 
Extensity,  primitive  to  all  sensa- 
tion, 335 
Exteriority  of  objects,  15 
Externa]  world,  15 
Extirpation  of  higher  nerve  cen- 
tres, 95  ff. 
Eye,  its  anatomy,  28-30 

Familiarity,  sense  of,  see  Recog- 
nition 
Fear,  385,  406,  407 
FECHNER,  21,  229 


472 


INDEX. 


Feeling  of  effort,  434 

Fere,  311 

Fekhiek,  132 

Fissure  of  Rolando,  seat  of  mo- 
tor incitations,  106 

Fissure  of  Sylvius,  108 

Foramen  of  Monro,  88 

Force,  original,  effort  feels  like, 
442 

Forgetting,  300 

Fornix,  81,  86,  87,89 

Fovea  centralis,  31 

Franklin,  121 

Franz,  Dr.,  308 

Freedom  of  the  will,  237 

Free-will  and  attention  ,  237;  re- 
lates solely  to  effort  of  atten- 
tion, 455;  insoluble  on  strictly 
psychologic  grounds,  466;  ethi- 
cal importance  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  effort,  458 

Frequency,  determines  associa- 
tion, 264 

"Fringes"  of  mental  objects, 
163  ff 

Frogs'  lower  centres,  95 

Functions  of  the  Brain,  Chapter 
VIII,  91;  nervous  functions, 
general  idea  of,  91 

Fusion  of  mental  states,  197, 
245,  339 

Fusion,  of  sensations,  23,  43,  57 

Galton,  126,  265,  303,  306 

Genius,  227,  327 

Goethe,  146,  157 

g0ld8cheider,  11,  64,  68 

Goltz,  100 

Guiteau,  185 

Gurney,  Edmund,  331,  334 

Habit,  Chapter  X,  134  ff.;  has  a 
physical  basis,  134;  due  to 
plasticity,  185;  due  to  path- 
ways through  nerve-centres, 
136;  effects  of,  138;  practical 
use  of,  138;  depends  on  sensa- 
tions not  attended  to,  141; 
ethical  and  pedagogical  impor- 
tance of  142  ff.;  habit  the  ulti- 
mate cause  of  association,  256 

Hagenauer,  386 


Hall,  Robert,  223 

Hallucinations,  330  ff. 

Hamilton,  260,  268 

Harmony,  58 

Hartley,  255 

Hearing,  47  ff. ;  centre  of,  in  cor 

tex,  113 
Heat-sensations,  63  ff.;  nerves  of 

64 
Helmholtz,  26,  42,  43,  55,  56, 

58, 121,  226,  227,  231,  233,  234, 

321 
Hemispheres,  general  notion  of, 

97;  chief  seat  of  memory,  98; 

effects  of   deprivation   of,   on 

frogs,  92;  on  pigeons,  96 
Herbart,  222,  326 
Herbartian  School,  157 
Hering,  24,  26 
Herzen,  123,  124 
Hippocampi,  88 
Hodgson,  262,  264,  280,  283 
Holbrook,  297 
Horsley,  107,  118 
Hume,  161,  244 
Hunger,  sensations  of,  69 
Huxley,  143 
Hypnotic  conditions,  301 

Ideas,  the  theory  of,  154  ff.;  nevev 
come  twice  the  same,  154;  they 
do  not  permanently  exist,  157; 
abstract  ideas,  240,  251;  uni- 
versal 240;  order  of  ideas  by 
association,  253 

'  Identical  retinal  points,'  35 

Identity, personal,  201 ;  mutations 
of,  205  ff. ;  alternating  person- 
ality, 205 

Ideo-motor  action  the  type  of  all 
volition,  432 

Illusions,  317  ff.,  330 

Images,  mental,  compared  with 
sensations,  14;  double,  in  vis- 
ion, 36;  '  after-images,'  43-5; 
visual,  302;  auditory,  306: 
motor,  307;  tactile,  308 

Imagination,  Chapter  XIX;  de- 
fined,  302;  differs  in  individ- 
uals, 302;  Galton's  statistics  of, 
302;  visual,  302;  auditory,  306 
motor,  307;  tactile,  308;  patho 


IKDEX. 


473 


logical  differences,  308;  cere- 
bral process  of,  310;  not  locally 
distinct  from  that  of  sensation, 
310 

Imitation,  406 

Inattention,  218,  236 

Increase  of  stimulus,  20;  serial, 
24 

Infundibulum,  82,  84,  88 

Inhibition,  defective,  causes  an 
Explosive  Will,  437 

Inhibition  of  instincts  by  habits, 
399 

Insane  delusions.  207 

Instinct, Chapter  XXV;  emotions 
compared  with,  373;  definition 
of,  391;  every  instinct  is  an 
impulse,  392;  not  always  blind 
or  invariable,  395;  modified 
by  experience,  396;  two  prin- 
ciples of  non-uniformity,  398; 
man  has  more  than  beasts,  398, 
406;  transitory,  402;  of  chil- 
dren, 406;  fear,  407 

Intellect,  part  played  by,  in 
space-perception,  349 

Intensity  of  sensations,  16 

Interest,  selects  certain  objects 
and  determines  thoughts  170; 
influence  in  association,  262 

Introspection,  118 

Janet.  211,  212,  301 
Jackson,  Hughmngs,  105,  117 
Joints,  their  sensbility,  74 

Kadinskt,  330 

Knowledge,  theory    of,  2,   464, 

467;   two  kinds  of,  14 
Konig,  46 
Krishaber,  208 

Labyrinth,  47,  49-52 

Lange,  K.,  329 

Laws,  cerebral,  of  association,  255 

Law,  Weber's,  17;  — ,  Fechner's 

21 ;  — ,  of  relativity,  24 
Lazarus,  300,  323 
Lenticular  nucleus,  81 
Lewes,  11,  232,  326 
Likeness,  243,  364 
Lindsay,  Dr.,  413 


Localization  of  Functions  in  the 

hemispheres,  104  ff 
Localization,  Skin,  61 
Locations,   in  environment,  340; 

serial  order  of,  341 
Locke,  244,  302,  357 
Lockean  School,  157 
Locomotion,  instinct  of,  406 
Lombard,  131 
Longituditional  fissure,  84 
Lotze,  175 
Love.  407 
Lower  Centres,  of  frogs  and  pige 

ons,  95  ff 
Ltjdwig,  130 

Mach,  75 

Mamillary  bodies,  84 

Man's  intellectual  distinction 
from  brutes,  367 

Mantegazza,  390 

Martin,  40,  44,  45,  49,  52,  53, 
60,  61,  65,  69 

Martineau,  251 

Materialism  and  emotion,  380 

Matteuci,  120 

Maudslet,  138 

Measurement,  of  sensations,  22; 
of  space,  342. 

'Mediumships,'  212 

Medulla  oblongata,  84,  108 

Memory,  Chapter  XVIII;  hem- 
ispheres physical  seat,  of;  98; 
defined,  287;  analysis  of  the 
phenomenon  of  memory,  287 
ff . ;  return  of  a  mental  image  is 
not  memory,  289;  association 
explains  recall  and  retention, 
289;  brain-scheme  of,  291;  con- 
ditions of  good  memory,  292; 
multiple  associations  favor, 
294;  effects  of  cramming  on, 
295;  how  to  improve  memory, 
298;  recognition,  299;  forget- 
ting, 300;  hypnotics,  301 

Mental  blindness,  112 

Mental  images,  14 

Mental  operations,  simultaneous, 
219 

Mental  states,  cannot  fuse,  197; 
relation  of,  to  their  objects,  464 

Mebkel,  59,  66 


474 


INDEX. 


Metaphysics,  what  the  word 
moans.  461 

Meyer,  G.  H.,  308,  311 

Meynert,  105.  117 

Mill,  Jambs,  196,  276,  289 

Mill,  J.  8..  147,  157 

Mimicry,  406 

Mind  depends  on  brain  condi- 
tions, 3-7;  states  of,  their  rela- 
tion to  their  objects,  464;  see 
Cotu>ciouane8S. 

Modesty,  407 

Monistic  theories  of  conscious- 
ness. 462 

Morgan,  Lloyd,  368 

Mosso,  130,  131 

Motion,  sensations  of,  Chapter 
VI,  70  ff. ;  feeling  of  motion 
over  surfaces,  70 

Motor  aphasia,  108 

Motor  region  of  cortex,  106 

Motor  type  of  imagination,  307 

Movement,  consciousness  and,  II, 
Chapter  I;  images  of  move- 
ment, 307;  all  consciousness  is 
motor,  370 

Munk,  110 

MlJNSTERbERG,  23,  311 

Muscular  sensation,  65  ff. ;  rela- 
tions to  space,  66,  74;  muscular 
centre  in  cortex,  106 

Musbey,  Dr.,  440 

Naunyn,  115 
Nerve-currents,  9 
Nervous  discharge,  120 
Nerve-endings  in  the  skin,  60;  in 

muscles    and   tendons,    66-67; 

Pain,  67  ff. ;  nerve-centres,  92 
Nerves,  general  functions  of,  91 

ff. 
Neural    activity,    general    condi- 
tions   of,    Chapter    IX,     120; 

nervous  discharge,  120 
Neural  functions,  general  idea  of, 

91 
Neural  process,  in  habit,  134  ff . ; 

in     association,     255    ff.;     in 

memory,  291;   in  imagination, 

310;  in  perception,  329 
Nucleus    leuticularis,     81,    108; 

caudatus,  81,  108 


Object,  the,  of  sensation,  18-15, 
of  thought,  154,  163;  one  part 
of,  more  interesting  than  an- 
other, 170;  object  must  change 
to  hold  attention,  226;  objects 
as  signs  and  as  realities,  845; 
relation  of  states  of  mind  to 
their  object,  464 

Occipited  lobes,  seat  of  visual 
centre,  110 

Old-fogyism  vs.  genius,  327 

Olfactory  lobes,  82,  84 

Olivary  bodies,  85 

Optic  nerve,  82,  89 

Optic  tracts,  84 

Original  force,  effort  feels  like 
one,  442 

Overtones,  55 

Pain,  67  ff. ;  pain  and  pleasure  as 
springs  of  action,  444 

Pascal,  223 

Past,  time,  known  in  a  present 
feeling,  285;  the  immediate 
past  is  a  portion  of  the  present 
duration-block,  280 

Paulhan,  219,  220 

Pedagogic  remarks  on  habit,  142- 
on  attention.  236 

Peduncles,  84,  85,  86 

Perception,  Chapter  XX;  com 
pared  with  sensation,  312:  in 
volves  reproductive  processes. 
312;  the  perceptive  state  oi 
mind  is  not  a  compound,  313; 
perception  is  of  definite  and 
probable  things,  316;  illusory 
perceptions,  317;  physiological 
process  of  perception,  329 

Percepiion  of  Space,  Chapter 
XXI 

Perez,  M. ,  408 

Personal  Identity,  201;  mutations 
of,  205  ff. ;  alternating  person 
ality,  205  ff. 

Personality,  alterations  of,  205 ff. 

Philosoph}-,  Psychology  and, 
Epilogue,  461 

Phosphorus  and  thought,  132 

Pia  mater,  82 

Pigeons'  lower  centres,  96 

Pitch.  54 


INDEX. 


475 


Pituitary  body,  82,  89 

Place,  a  series  of  positions,  341 

Plasticity,  as  basis  of  habit,  de- 
fined, 135 

Plato,  240 

Play,  407 

Pleasure,  and  pain,  as  springs  of 
action,  444 

Psychology  and  Philosophy,  Epi- 
logue, 461 

Pons  Varolii,  79,  84, 108 

Positions,  place  a  series  of,  341 

Practice,  improves  discrimina 
tion,  252 

Present,  the  present  moment, 
280 

Pressure  sense,  60 

Preyer,  406 

Probability  determines  what  ob 
ject  shall  be    perceived,   316, 
329 

Problematic  conceptions,  240 

Problems,  solution  of,  272 

Projection  of  sensations,  eccen- 
tric, 15 

Psychology,  defined,  1;  a  natural 
science,  2;  what  data  it  as 
sumes.  2;  Psychology  and  Phil- 
osophy, Chapter  XXVII. 

Psycho-physic  law,  17,  24, 46, 59, 
66,  67 

Pugnacity,  406 

PURKINJE,  75 

Pyramids,  85 
Quality,  13,  23,  25,  56 

Raehlmann,  349 

Rationality,  173 

Reaction -time,  120  ff. 

Real  magnitude,  determined  by 
aesthetic  and  oracfcical  interests, 
344 

Real  space,  337 

Reason,  254 

Reasoning.  Chapter  XXIII;  what 
it  is,  351;  involves  use  of  ab- 
stract characters.  353;  what  is 
meant  by  an  essential  charac- 
ter, 354;  the  essence  is  always 
for  a  subjective  interest,  358; 
two  great  points  in  reasoning, 


360;  sagacity.  362;  help  from 
association  by  similarity,  364; 
reasoning  power  of  brutes,  367 

Recall,  289 

Recency,  determines  association, 
264 

'Recepts,'368 

Recognition,  299 

Recollection,  289  ff. 

Redintegration,  264 

Reflex  acts,  defined,  92;  reaction- 
time  measures  one,  123;  con- 
catenated habits  are  constituted 
by  a  chain  of,  140 

Reid,  313 

Relations,  between  objects,  162; 
feelings  of,  162 

'  Relativity  of  knowledge,'  24 

Reproduction  in  memory,  289  ff.; 
voluntary,  271 

Resemblance,  243 

Retention  in  memory,  289 

Retentiveness,  organic,  291;  it  is 
unchangeable.  296 

Retina,  peripheral  parts  of,  act 
as  sentinels,  73 

Revival  in  memory,  289  ff. 

Ribot,  300 

RlCHET,  410 

Rivalry  of  selves,  186 
Robertson.  Prof  Croom,  318 
Rolando,  fissure  of,  106 
Romane  ,  128,  322,  367 
Rosenthal,  11 
Rousseau,  148 
Rotation,  sense  of,  75 

Sagacity,  362 
Sameness,  201,  202 
Schaefer,  107,  110,  118 

SCHIFP,   131 

Schneider,  72.  372,  392 
Science,  natural,  1 
Scott,  Prof.,  311 
Sea-sickness,    accidental    origin, 

390 
Seat  of  consciousness,  5 
Selection,  10;  a  cardinal  function 

of  consciousness,  170 
Self,     The,    Chapter    XII:    not 

primary,  176;  the  empirical  self, 

176;  its  constituents,  177;   the 


476 


INDEX. 


material  self,  177;  the  social 
self,  179;  the  spiritual  self, 
181;  Belf -appreciation,  182;  self- 
seeking,  bodily,  social,  and 
spiritual,  184;  rivalry  of  the 
mes.  186;  their  hierarchy,  190; 
teleology  of  self-interest,  193; 
the  I,  or  'pure  ego,'  195; 
thoughts  are  not  compounded 
of  fused'  sensations,  196;  the 
soul  as  a  combining  medium, 
200;  the  sense  of  personal 
identity,  201;  explained  by 
identity  of  function  in  succes- 
sive passing  thoughts,  203; 
mutations  of  the  self,  205;  in- 
sane delusions,  207;  alternating 
personalities,  210;  medium- 
ships,  212;  who  is  the  thinker? 
215 

Self-appreciation,  182 

Self-interest,  theological  uses  of, 
193;  teleological  character  of, 
193 

Selves,  their  rivalry,  186 

Semicircular  canals,  50 

Semicircular  canals,  their  re- 
lation to  sensations  of  rotation, 
75 

Sensations,  in  General,  Chapter 
II,  p.  9;  distinguished  from 
perceptions.  12;  from  images. 
14;  first  things  in  conscious- 
ness 12;  make  us  acquainted 
with  qualities,  14;  their  ex- 
teriority. 15;  intensity  of  sensa- 
tions. 16;  their  measurement 
21 ;  they  are  not  compounds,  23 

Sensations,  of  touch,  60;  of  skin, 
60  IT.;  of  smell.  69;  of  pain,  67; 
of  heat,  63;  of  cold,  63;  of 
hunger,  69;  of  thirst,  69;  of 
motion,  70;  muscular,  65;  of 
taste,  69,  of  pressure,  60;  of 
joints,  74;  of  movement 
through  Bpnce,  75;  of  rotation, 
75;  of  translation,  76 

Sense  of  time,  see  Time 

Sensory  centres  in  the  cortex, 
113  ff. 

Septum  lucidum,  87 

Serial  order  of  locations,  341 


Shame,  374 

Sheep's  brain,  dissection  of,  81 

Sight,  28  ff.;  see  Vision 

Signs,  40;  sensations  are,  to  us 
of  other  sensations,  whose 
space-value  is  held  to  he  more 
real,  345  ff. 

Similarity,  association  by,  267, 
364;  see  Likeness 

Size,  40 

Skin — senses,  60  ff. ;  localizing 
power  of,  61;  discrimination 
of  points  on,  247 

Smell,  69;  centre  of,  in  cortex, 
116 

Smith,  T.  C,  311 

Sociability,  407 

Soul,  the,  as  ego  or  thinker,  196; 
as  a  combining  medium,  200, 
203 

Sound,  53-59;  images  of,  306 

Space,  Perception  of,  Chapter 
XXI:  extensity  in  three  di- 
mensions primitive  to  all  sensa- 
tion, 335;  construction  of  real 
space,  337;  the  processes  which 
it  involves;  (1)  Subdivision, 
338;  (2)  Coalescence  of  differ- 
ent sensible,  data  into  one 
'thing,'  339;  (3)  Location  in 
an  environment.  342;  objects 
which  are  signs,  and  objects 
which  are  realities,  345;  the 
third  dimension,  346;  Berk- 
eley's theory  of  distance.  346; 
part,  played  by  intellect  in 
space-perception,  349 

Space,  relation  of  muscular  sense 
to,  66,  74 

Spalding,  401  ff. 

Span  of  consciousness,  219,  286 

Specific  energies,  11 

Speech,  centres  of,  in  cortex,  109, 
thought  possible  without  it. 
169;  see  Aphasia 

Spencer.  103,  387.  390 

Spinal  cord,  conduction  of  pain 
by,  68;  centre  of  defensive 
movements,  93 

Spiritual  substance,  see  Soul 

Spiritualistic  theories  of  con- 
sciousness, 462 


INDEX. 


477 


Spontaneous  trains  of  thought, 

257;  examples,  257  ff.,  271 
Starr,  107,  113,  115 
Steinthal,  327 
Stream  of  Cousciousness,  Chapter 

XI,  151 
Stkicker,  307 
Subdivision  of  space,  338 
Substantive  states  of  mind.  160 
Succession  vs.  duration,  280;  not 

known  by  successive  feelings, 

285 
Summation  of  stimuli,  128 
Surfaces,  feeling  of  motion  over, 

70 

Tactile  centre  in  cortex,  116 
Tactile  images,  308 
Taine,  208 

Taste,  69;  centre  of,  in  cortex,  116 
Teleological   character    of    con- 
sciousness, 4;    of  self-interest, 
193 
Temperature-sense,  63  ff. 
Terminal  organs,  10,  30,  52 
Thalami,  80,  86,  89,  108 
Thermometry,  cerebral,  131 
Thing,'   coalescence  of    sensa- 
tions to  form  the  same,  3^9 
Thinking  principle,  see  Soul 
Third  dimension  of  space,  346 
Thirst,  sensations  of,  69 
Thomson,  Dr.  Allen.  129 
Thought,   the    'Topic'  of,    167; 
stream  of,  151 ,  can  be  carried 
on  in  any  terms,  167;  unity  of, 
196;    spontaneous    trains    of, 
257;    the    entire   thought    the 
minimum,  464 
Timbre,'  55 

Time,  sense  of,  Chapter  XVII; 
begins  with  duration.  280;  no 
sense  of  empty  time,  281;  com- 
pared with  perception  of  space, 
282;  discrete  flow  of  time, 
282;  long  intervals  couceived 
symbolically,  2S3;  we  measure 
duration  by  events  that  succeed 
in  it,  283;  variations  in  our 
estimations  of  its  length,  283; 
cerebral  processes  of,  286 


Touch,  60  ff . ;  centre  of,  in  cortex 

116;  images  of,  S08 
Transcendental  self  or  ego,  196 
Transitive  states  of  mind,  160 
Translation,  sense  of,  76 
Trapezium,  85 
Turner,  Dr.  J.  E.,  440 
Tympanum,  48 
Types  ot  decision,  429 

Unity  of  the  passing  thought,  196 
Universal  conceptions,  240 
Urbantschitch,  25 

Valve  of  Vieussens,  80,  86 
Variability  of  the  emotions,  381 
Varying    concomitants,    law    of 

disassociation  by,  251 
Ventricles,  79  ff. 

VlEROlfDT,  71 

Vision,  28  ff.;  binocular,  33-9; 
of  solidity,  37 

Visual  centre  of  cortex,  110,  115 

Visual  imagination,  302 

Visualizing  power,  302 

Vividness,  determines  associa- 
tion, 364 

Volition,  see  Will. 

VOLKMANN,   285 

Voluminousness,  primitive,  of 
sensations,  335 

Voluntary  acts,  defined,  92;  vol- 
untary attention,  224;  vol- 
untary trains  of  thought,  271 

Weber's  law,  17.  24,  46,  59 

Weber's  law — weight,  66;  pain, 
67 

Weight,  sensibility  to,  66  ff. 

Wernicke.  109,  113,  115 

Wesley,  223 

Wheatstone,  347 

Wig  an,  300 

Will,  Chapter  XXVI;  voluntary 
acts,  415;  they  are  secoudary 
performances,  415;  no  third 
kind  of  idea  is  called  for,  418; 
the  motor-cue,  420;  ideo-motor 
action,  432;  action  after  de- 
liberation, 428;  five  types  of 
decision,  429;  feeling  of  effort, 


478 


JNDBX. 


434;  healthiness  of  will,  435; 
defects  of.  4'36;  the  explosive 
will:  (1)  from  defective  in- 
hibition, 487;  (2)  from  ex- 
aggerated impulsion,  439;  the 
obstructed  will,  441;  effort 
feels  like  an  original  force,  442; 
pleasure  and  pain  as  springs  of 
action,  444;  what  holds  at- 
tention determines  action,  446; 


will  is  a  relation  between  the 
mind  and  its  ideas,  449;  vo- 
litional effort  is  effort  of  at 
tention,  450;  free-will,  455; 
ethical  importance  of  effort, 
458 

Willing  terminates  with  theprev 
alence  of  the  idea,  449 

Wundt,  11,  18,  25,  58,  122.  123. 
125,  127,  220,  281 


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